East Coast and West Coast rap may have dominated the nineties, but whether you’d like to admit it or not, the Dirty South owned the last decade. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t a huge fan, as I know many devotees of the early ‘90’s NYC sound weren’t, but I tried to look past the stylistic differences and judge on substance. Now I’ve never thought much of Young Jeezy’s “aaaaaaaaaaayy” and I’m still scratching my head about the universal adoration of Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, but I can just never get enough of T.I. and his smooth Southern drawl and ludicrously braggadocio lyrics.
Initially it was hard to take T.I. seriously (despite his first album being called I’m Serious), because it seemed preposterous when he declared himself the “King of the South” at the beginning of his career. But he seems to have a knack for delivering on his oversimplifications. Just look at his new single, his first release after doing a year in prison, which is simply titled “I’m Back.” Sure this has been the title of about a million rap songs, but do you think he cares? No! He is the royal “I,” the only rapper that matters, and with the relentless fire he spits on this one, it’s hard to disagree with him. Who was that rapper that just went to prison? Weezy something or another?
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