T.I’s "Trouble Man: Heavy Is The Head" Album Review

This is T.I’s 8th album, and it is great to still feel the energy in him on this one. "Trouble Man: Heavy Is The Head" dropped on December 18; The passion is still there, amidst all the troubles, and even with him doing the Hollywood thing, and having a reality TV show with his wife and kids, he still resumes his role as the “ rubber-band-man”. As much as rappers can call this being real, and staying true to one’s self, I think this is the little chink in the armour of this album. More on that later.

The album starts off with the intro, “The Introduction”, which sees T.I giving the best of his skills. T.I’s greatest gift on the mic has always been the ability to ride the beat beautifully, and yet pass his message through. Through his multi-syllabic rhyme pattern (one of the reasons why he is one of Eminem’s favourite), and his signature south-side accent, he holds you steady through the full length of the track. The second track, “G Season” is a track assisted by another rapper that has his greatest skill in lyrical delivery/flow, Meek Mill; the chemistry is definitely there on this song, and a reminder that Meek was once signed to T.I’s Grand Hustle Records.  The third track, “Trap Back Jumpin”  takes you back to T.I’s Trap Muzik days. He hits us with fast and intelligently woven lines like-

 You can play with them niggaz, not me okay? Them other niggaz suckas, I'm a G okay?

T.I. K-I-N-G, okay? Just respect that shit and you'll be okay

 T.I picked the perfect time in the album to switch up his style a little, and then came “Ball”; The Lil Wayne assisted club banger that is sure to get you off your seat. The album goes mellow after that with “Sorry”, which features Andre 3,000. And at the beginning of “Can You Learn” with R.Kelly, T.I has a skit that explains how he got caught with all those firearms in 2007. From here on, T.I takes us on a roller-coaster ride; one high tempo song, followed by a low tempo song.  He got very experimental with the sing-song style on Cruisin’. And it really came out well. It helped show the T.I that is not all aggressive and hardcore. As I said, there is one high, followed by a low. “Cruisin” is the low, “Addresses” is the high. On “Adresses”, he definitely is going at a rapper...maybe Gucci Mane, if not, it is sure is someone from his city- ATL.

As I said in the beginning, even-though Trouble Man is meant to be about his troubled years, he is doing more of glorifying his past, than just narrating his story. And then, he has pockets of songs here and there where he really sticks to what the theme of the album is. Songs like “Wonderful” feat Akon, “Guns & Roses” feat. Pink, “Hallelujah”, and “Can You Learn” feat. R.Kelly get the message through. He definitely brought his "A" Game all through the album in terms of delivery and lyrics. Maybe a little re-arranging of the tracks on the album would make it a 5/5, but I will give it a strong 4.

You can check out the album here- T.I- Trouble Man