Webbie f/ Bun B and Lil' Phat of 3 Deep - "Doe Doe" (mp3)
I wish more rap albums started the way Webbie's Savage Life 2 does, straight into a verse with no intro skit, or even a few instrumental bars to establish the beat, just hitting the ground running. And the first thing he says when you pop in the disc, "couldn't wait to get more shit from Trill E-N-T, huh?" also happens to be absolutely correct, because it's Webbie's label that's red hot right now (and to be more precise, his labelmate Lil Boosie), not Webbie himself. So like a lot of people, I'm copping his new album because that just happens to be the one Trill is putting on shelves at the moment. A lot of talk's been thrown around lately about how Trill Ent. is the new Cash Money, a parallel that makes a lot of sense in some ways, but is nonetheless kind of premature and potentially damning, since they can't really hope to live up to that comparison, at least not yet. They've got a solid in-house producer in Mouse, but he's no Mannie Fresh, and a well-stocked cast of characters on the roster, but they're no Hot Boyz. And the fact that one of their best known MCs, Webbie, sounds almost exactly like one of Cash Money's worst, Baby, isn't a good sign (seriously, when Webbie and Birdman drop consecutive verses on Savage Life 2's "A Miracle" you almost can't tell which is which).
When my car was stolen and later recovered last year, the thieves took some of my CDs but left a few Boosie and Webbie mixtapes, so I was jamming those along with the Survival Of The Fittest comp a lot last summer (after a couple years of hearing a lot about Boosie from Ethan and enjoying the occasional guest verse). And fortunately, Savage Life 2 is in a way more of a posse album than solo album, with half the tracks featuring at least one other Trill artist. And even if their B-listers like Lil Phat of 3 Deep and Big Head aren't really great in and of themselves, they generally sound good with a verse here or there, taking the spotlight off of the blank non-entity that is Webbie, who's competent enough but sometimes, like on "Just Like This," can't ride a beat to save his life. My favorite song, "Doe Doe," features Webbie and Lil Phat attacking a beat full of stuttering triplets (with the gunshot percussion that's become kind of cliched in the last few years, but is employed so well here that it works on a musical level whether or not you scan what the origin of the sound effects is). In a weird way, the best MC on the track, Bun B, kind of ruins it by bringing his calm, measured style to a beat that really demands more of that shrill, arrogant Pimp C energy.
I wish more rap albums started the way Webbie's Savage Life 2 does, straight into a verse with no intro skit, or even a few instrumental bars to establish the beat, just hitting the ground running. And the first thing he says when you pop in the disc, "couldn't wait to get more shit from Trill E-N-T, huh?" also happens to be absolutely correct, because it's Webbie's label that's red hot right now (and to be more precise, his labelmate Lil Boosie), not Webbie himself. So like a lot of people, I'm copping his new album because that just happens to be the one Trill is putting on shelves at the moment. A lot of talk's been thrown around lately about how Trill Ent. is the new Cash Money, a parallel that makes a lot of sense in some ways, but is nonetheless kind of premature and potentially damning, since they can't really hope to live up to that comparison, at least not yet. They've got a solid in-house producer in Mouse, but he's no Mannie Fresh, and a well-stocked cast of characters on the roster, but they're no Hot Boyz. And the fact that one of their best known MCs, Webbie, sounds almost exactly like one of Cash Money's worst, Baby, isn't a good sign (seriously, when Webbie and Birdman drop consecutive verses on Savage Life 2's "A Miracle" you almost can't tell which is which).
When my car was stolen and later recovered last year, the thieves took some of my CDs but left a few Boosie and Webbie mixtapes, so I was jamming those along with the Survival Of The Fittest comp a lot last summer (after a couple years of hearing a lot about Boosie from Ethan and enjoying the occasional guest verse). And fortunately, Savage Life 2 is in a way more of a posse album than solo album, with half the tracks featuring at least one other Trill artist. And even if their B-listers like Lil Phat of 3 Deep and Big Head aren't really great in and of themselves, they generally sound good with a verse here or there, taking the spotlight off of the blank non-entity that is Webbie, who's competent enough but sometimes, like on "Just Like This," can't ride a beat to save his life. My favorite song, "Doe Doe," features Webbie and Lil Phat attacking a beat full of stuttering triplets (with the gunshot percussion that's become kind of cliched in the last few years, but is employed so well here that it works on a musical level whether or not you scan what the origin of the sound effects is). In a weird way, the best MC on the track, Bun B, kind of ruins it by bringing his calm, measured style to a beat that really demands more of that shrill, arrogant Pimp C energy.
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