With the release of his new album, Big Boi can finally put to rest those claims that he was the lesser MC in Outkast, and there were quite a few people who believed that, myself included. Not that I didn't recognize the talent, but it seemed a more restrained force than the other-worldly hinge of Dre. With Sir Lucious Left Foot, those misguided notions have all but vanished, to be replaced with a kind of muted awe at what Big Boi has accomplished. This album has so many clever twists and turns; the songs stop and start, change tones, dance lyrical circles around the beats, and manage to stay together despite the obvious disparate influences that Big Boi is wrangling here. Songs like the Janelle Monae collaborative "Shutterbugg" or the yeah-he-gives-a-decent-verse Gucci Mane-guesting album highlight "Shine Blockas" showcase a new found, or maybe not so new found, confidence in his own abilities. Big Boi sounds relaxed and never off his game, even when he's stopping momentarily to throw out a handful of insults and topical digs. He's serious but never uncharacteristically so. Big Boi has produced a dazzlingly cohesive album that reaches even beyond the highs fans would have expected of cohort Dre. And to his credit, Big Boi never seems fey about his success or falsely prideful; he accepts that this is the album he was always meant to make.
Tracklisting:
01. Feel Me (Intro)
02. Daddy Fat Sax
03. Turns Me On
04. Follow Us
05. Shutterbugg
06. General Patton
07. Tangerine
08. You Ain’t No DJ
09. Hustle Blood
10. Be Still
11. Fo Yo Sorrows
12. Night Night
13. Shine Blockas (listen to the mp3 below)
14. The Train Part II
15. Back Up Plan
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