Get To Know H.E.R.

Hits: Intro, Undisputed, Wish You Would (ft TI), One More Drink (ft T-Pain), Call Up The Homies (ft The Game and Willie Northpole), Contagious (ft Jamie Foxx), Last Of A Dying Breed (ft Lil Wayne), MVP, I Do It For Hip Hop (ft Nas and Jay-Z), Do The Right Thing (ft Common)

Strikes: Southern Gangsta (ft Rick Ross, Playaz Circle, Ving Rhymes), What Them Girls Like (ft Chris Brown and Sean Garrett)

Balls: Everybody Hates Chris (ft Chris Rock), Nasty Girl (ft Plies

Ludacris is and has always been one of the few mainstream southern acts I’ve always had utmost respect for throughout the years. He’s always managed to make songs that attracted an audience without selling out his integrity as a lyricist. Granted, his songs haven’t always been thematically very interesting but you can’t knock the guy on his technical skills. The greatest thing about Luda, however is that he seems to be constantly evolving and improving himself. Most rappers at this point in their careers tend to become lazy with their rhymes (it happens even to the best of rappers…think about Big Daddy Kane after Prince of Darkness). Luda on the other hand sounds better and matures as an artist with each album.

The album in question starts off with a bang, since the intro actually has rapping on it (rapping on a rap intro?! No way!). But all kidding aside, after the great intro, the album continues to drop track after track of dope rhymes over some equally dope beats. Speaking of dope beats, before going any further props are due to the man for reaching out to Primo and 9^th Wonder instead of relying solely on the usual suspects. And further to the man’s credit, he went all out on the two songs in question.

As far as guest artists go, I was pretty wary of the overload of guest artists on this and expected Luda to become lost within this sea of features. Not to worry though, as Luda seems to have stepped up his flow enough to stand out even alongside giants such as Nas and Jay. This, of course indirectly brings us to the one glaring negative on this album. With so many guest artists, there’s not only the risk of the main attraction being downplayed, but on the flipside, the guest in question may suck so much that he or she is able to drag down the whole track by him or herself. I mean, most of the guests on here are on point. Some of these guests were surprising in that I would’ve never expected the collabo (Common) and some guests were surprising in that I expected the track to suck and was instead pleasantly surprised (T-Pain). But there were some collabos that produced some very questionable results. Rick Ross, Playaz Circle and Ving Rhymes provide possibly the worst lyrics on the entire album, all on one track (so sick I wrote my rhymes in the hospital???? Come on…). Not to mention that the track with Chris Brown turned out to be a complete mess (proving once again that all tracks ending with the words Girls and Like are destined to suck hard).

But even with those two travesties on this album, I would have to say that Theater of the Mind is without a doubt, Luda’s best album thus far (although Word of Mouf is arguably more fun of a listen). If he continues on this track for his next effort and cuts out some of the shitty guests and bullshit, who knows, his next album may just end up being a southern classic.