Follow
us on Twitter for updates as they happen and sarcastic commentary.
Like
us on Facebook for updates in your feed, special offers, and more.
RSS
if you're one of "those" people.
Join
our mailing list. It's so wizard.
by
20 September, 2013@3:22 pm
12 comments
Tags:



In 2012, it was hard to avoid 2 Chainz. Dude was everywhere, riding off the success of his T.R.U. Religion mixtape from the year before. He managed to ride that success by churning out a number of club smashes from his Def Jam debut, Based On A T.R.U. Story. To be honest, this critic hated 2 Chainz’s music at first, that is, until songs like “Birthday Song”, “I Luv The Strippers”, “I’m Different”, “Spend It”, and others became staples of my weekend DJ sets. While the subject matter might be simple, 2 Chainz had a knack for sliding in little lyrical gems from time-to -time that I couldn’t help crack a smile at. Doing over 100 features over the past year, the artist formerly known as Tity Boy was hard to avoid, and hard to hate.


B.O.A.T.S. 2: Me Time, is the follow-up to the original Based On A T.R.U. Story, arriving just a year later. The question is, can 2 Chainz duplicate the success of his debut?


There’s no doubt about it that we’ll be hearing some of these songs all year long, like the Dr. Dre-esque “Where U Been?” and “Used 2″, a Mannie Fresh produced spirtual successor to Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up”. 2 Chainz is great at producing this kind of thing, and once the alcohol is flowing at the club, you quickly forget your real world rules for hip-hop. Another track that stands out is the perfectly executed “I Do It” with Lil Wayne and Drake, which finds the trio in top form, building on top of one another’s verses, in one of the most cohesive collabos of the year.


The Pharrell helmed, “Fed’s Watching”, was the album’s first single, which didn’t have the same impact as some of 2 Chainz earlier singles, but here finds a nice groove with it’s Caribbean flavored beat, and motto for the stylish, “Im’a be fresh as hell if the fed’s watching.”


The rest of the album does not fare so well, however. His collabo with Fergie, “Netflix”, not only suffers from a ridiculous concept (“Let’s make a sex tape and put it on Netflix” ?!?), but also falls flat when she steps up to the mic. The album hits a slump midway through as songs like “Extra” (feat. Rich Homie Quan) and “Beautiful Pain” (w/ Lloyd and Mase) just kind of plod along. “So We Can Live” suffers an overdone T-Pain hook, but does have a nice breakdown in the second half of the song.


After that, the album is never able to catch back up to it’s stronger first half. It’s pretty clear that this is somewhat of a rush job, as Chainz has miraculously made more guest appearances than any other rapper this year, toured relentlessly, and churned out another full-length in the process. While he has undoubtedly made a mountain of cash to sit on for the next decade or so, it might be a good idea to indeed take some “me time”, and slowly craft his third LP to perfection.

Related Articles
12 Responses to "2 Chainz – “B.O.A.T.S. 2: Me Time” – @@1/2 (Review)"
  • WuBrotha#1 says:

    If just reviewing this album alone is ruffling feathers, then Heaven forbid it got a rating higher than the one it received. I personally will read reviews, regardless. Be it artists I don’t care for, artists I haven’t heard of or listened to, as well as artists I enjoy, regardless of how nurderous the review or rating. It’s more to get a different perspective I guess. Now I am not in any sense a Chainz fan, but reading a review like this might compliment my feelings on him. I MIGHT (and I emphasize MIGHT) give the songs that were noted as okay just for amusement. But fact of the matter is, if it came down to reviewing everybody, then HHS would have a problem. With one site frequenter pushing for artists that THEY think deserve some attention, then wouldn’t we all deserve that kind of treatment? And as a diverse demographic that frequents this site, and me personally, I would expect reviews from European artists, Asian artists, African etc. just appreciate that sites like this exist. We all deserve to have an opinion on subject matters, but lets show the architects of this site some love and respect for doing what they do, their hard work and putting a place where you and I can come to when we do ‘t necessarily want to deal with the politics and bullshit other hip hop websites offer. I am not going to question the credibility of Pizzo or any HHS contributors if they rate the next artist I love with low ratings. I will argue otherwise and offer my views, but won’t expect them to go back and change the rating, or change protocol because one upset fan or non fan starts throwing tantrums.

  • Hodges says:

    I love the site, but I personally think there’s some type of obligation to acknowledge Def Jam releases no matter how wack they are. I guess they’ve earned that right, but it’s only so far Hip Hop’s Flagship Label can fall off. After signing Trinidad James though there doesn’t seem to be a floor.

  • Comments (12)

    the man the myth

    September 20th, 2013 at 9:18 pm