Consumer Guide Album
T.I.: Us or Else: Letter to the System [Grand Hustle/Roc Nation, 2016]
In an odd move commercially but a fortuitous one culturally, the well-fixed ex-felon absorbs all six tracks of the political EP he dropped in September into a doubly unexpected 15-track album. The new songs are no stronger than the old ones and never top the Killer Mike throwdown "40 Acres"; they make room for the regrettable hook "You know why you broke you niggaz is lazy" and the provocative refrain "Pain just a weakness when it leavin' the body." Yet the bubble-funk of the opener eases its iconoclasm down, the tongue-in-cheek patriotism of "That's my story and I'm stickin' to it" adds cred to the title track's Black Lives Matter, and the don't-trap-like-I-did admonitions gain cred by association. Between its timing, its heft, and its complexity, the whole is more than equal to the sum of its parts.
A-
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