Thug panda is thug…
[Website]
[6.45]
Al Shipley: Trick Daddy’s still one of Miami’s best rappers and most consistent album artists, even as less talented contemporaries get all the shine these days. And that’s why it’s so depressing that at the nadir of his career he’s named an album Finally Famous, with a flop single that repeatedly crows “I swear I won’t flop.”
[4]
Renato Pagnani: Anyone remotely familiar with Trick Daddy -— his emotive, syrupy rasp, his bear-hug flow, his region-defining swag that rappers like T.I. would go on to spit-shine and polish on their way to the top of the charts —- knows exactly why they jock. And on triumphant tracks like this, it’s clear as the diamonds on his chain. The other guy? The only thing he does is rob us of a third TD.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: I’m a long-term fan of Trick Daddy, but his music’s always been surprisingly lightweight for someone incapable of leaving the word ‘thug’ out of an album title. This is no exception: the music pulses along placidly while he talks about the hataz, and there is an attempt at a poppy chorus. Still, he always makes me smile, and this does that.
[7]
Chuck Eddy: He gets my vote for the best four-album hip-hop run of the ’00s, give or take Lil Wayne (Book of Thugs: Chapter AK Verse 47; Thugs Are Us; Thug Holiday; Thug Matrimony: Married To The Streets), but to be honest it’s not like I pull even those albums out much, and I probably reached my saturation point five years ago — never even checked out his last album, and I won’t listen to the new one unless a CD mysteriously falls into my lap. That said, this sounds just fine. And tells me nothing I didn’t already know, and nothing I’ll seek out again.
[6]
Anthony Miccio: Trick Daddy’s assertions that he was still a thug, still grinding, still fly, still et cetera failed to excite consumers on his last album three years ago, so I’m surprised his new album is subtitled Born A Thug, Still A Thug. Still a thug long enough and he’ll eventually nod off.
[4]
Melissa Bradshaw: If this Southern rap anthem replete with stirring chords and sing-along chorus is generic, it really doesn’t matter. Trick Daddy was one of the founders of the Miami scene, so he’s allowed. And even while his lyrics, delivered in perfect drawly swagger, are a standardised rebuff to haters, the recent news that he’s refusing treatment for Lupus makes it all very moving. He truly fulfils the formula’s capacity for emotion.
[8]
Dave Moore: I never even noticed Trick Daddy’s affirmational tracks until recently (the naked sentimentalism of “don’t you agree that all little kids deserve to laugh?” jumped out at me the other day from the middle of Thug Matrimony) but the guy knows how to do a fuck-the-haters bootstrap pride anthem with the slightest hint of sweetness. Then again, maybe I’m just hearing things, or projecting, or maybe it’s a wistfully-reconsidering-latter-day-Michael-Jackson phase thang.
[8]
John Seroff: There’s nothing tired on this track; just brick-solid cyber-clarion melody, sub eight-minute mile BPM and flat, declamatory, understated and musical rap from Trick. It’s the sort of song that would gracefully accompany a walk into the ring, a ride home or a marriage processional. Endlessly repeatable and endlessly enjoyable.
[8]
Matt Cibula: Not an ambitious or even notable backing track but I just love Trick Daddy and his charismatic ways. I have a couple of his actual CDs kicking around here somewhere, time to go digging in my own crates and thug it out in my Prius like a pimp.
[7]
Additional Scores
Pete Baran: [7]
Hillary Brown: [5]