I'm a big UGK fan, but Bun B's 2010 album was the most overrated album of last year. What's your thoughts?
Asked by Anonymous
Trill O.G. was a predictably risk-averse record, and the 5 Mics it received in The Source was a desperate grab for attention by the neutered rap mag (and/or some kind of convoluted lifetime achievement award). It’s feature-heavy and sprinkled with warmed over country rap tunes from Pimp C clones. It also feels a lot longer and arduous than it’s 55 minutes would suggest.
That being said, there are some interesting moments on it. “Chuuch” is a really strong introduction to the record — hard to complain about the confident, sinuous drawl of J. Prince (it’s practically melodic), even if he is praising his son for discovering Drake — and “Countin’ Money” seemed to rack up a lot of plays on both my iTunes and YouTube (“fuck a rubberband a n***a need a buncha ropes” is the kind of boast/imagery (even if the metaphor is well run at this point) that drew me into the world of UGK so many years ago).
Nonetheless, there’s some pretty unforgivable shit on here, like “Trillionaire” with it’s inane T-Pain feature, “Let Em Know”, the unimaginative collab with DJ Premier, and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League’s yacht rap is too polished for Bun, so “All A Dream” comes across as forced and forgettable. Ultimately, the record is a mess of southern rap styles that appears to strive for maximum commerical exposure at the cost of originality. It’s been said numerous times by people more knowledgeable about this rap shit than myself, but Bun and Pimp were best when their complementary, but contrasting, styles were able to ebb and flow on a track crafted by the late country rap tunes architect — Bun’s directness and aggression adding real menace to the out-sized personality of Sweet James Jones.
No amount of studio cut-and-pasting can bring that back. So instead, we get calculated business moves by the Rap-A-Lot brass, and Drake features.
-SM
