Paper Trail [PA] - T.I.

"Paper Trail" is T.I.'s sixth album. If you were not aware, this Atlanta rapper was arrested late in 2007 and had been under arrest for a few months on firearm-related charges. During this period of time he decided to record an entire album, he ended up recording in excess of 50 individual tracks so you can expect qulaity for this album in so much potential material.


1. "56 Bars"

T.I. doesn't ...
...gets straight inot his material, as ther is so much of it, it would be a waste to lose tracks for litte unneccesary sections. He establishes his status as a hardcore Gangsta rapper from the Dirty South in this Toomp-produced tune, and since his right-hand man, DJ Toomp didn't have any role in his last album "T.I. vs. T.I.P.", it was great to here him start things off here.

**Three Stars**

2. "I'm Illy"
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"Paper Trail" is T.I.'s sixth album. If you were not aware, this Atlanta rapper was arrested late in 2007 and had been under arrest for a few months on firearm-related charges. During this period of time he decided to record an entire album, he ended up recording in excess of 50 individual tracks so you can expect qulaity for this album in so much potential material.

1. "56 Bars"

T.I. doesn't mess around with any spoken introduction for this album, he gets straight inot his material, as ther is so much of it, it would be a waste to lose tracks for litte unneccesary sections. He establishes his status as a hardcore Gangsta rapper from the Dirty South in this Toomp-produced tune, and since his right-hand man, DJ Toomp didn't have any role in his last album "T.I. vs. T.I.P.", it was great to here him start things off here.

**Three Stars**

2. "I'm Illy"

Following on nicely from the tune whihc cmae before it, DJ Toomp return to come with his grimey beats for Tip to rhyme along to, and he is given the opportunity to continue exactly what he did on the first track, but I thought that the levels of variation in the beats is what made it seem much more exciting than the first. The subject the tune seems to vay, but he seems to focus upon himself and describing his ruthless TI.P. persona.

**Four Stars**

3. "Ready For Whatever"

The Dirty South specialist, Drumma Boy, who has worked with Rick Ross, Lil' Scrappy and Ludacris in the past, finds himself on this Cd doing the production, and just as all the times before he manages to come with something big, and quite experimental in comparison to all the safe options he's gone for in the past. You find the rapper, T.I. performign some raps which you woudl expect from him, and by this point in the abum its quite annoying as he hasn't really surprised me, and it hasn't had that much energy.

**Three Stars**

4. "On Top of the World" (feat. B.o.B and Ludacris)

B.o.B, a rapper signed to T.I.'s Grand Hustle record label, and another southern star in Ludacris, come together to collaborate with T.I. on this tune. With so many Atlanta rappers you find yourself overloaded with quality, and I foudn that this was the first time where I was really excited by the album as Toomp comes with some high-energy club-suited beats, and the featured artists brign something ne to the release. Here they rap about their past ambitions as opposed to their current positions, "...On Top of the World".

**Four Stars**

5. "Live Your Life" (feat. Rihanna)

This one has some experimental production as Justy Blaze went for somethign new by using O-Zone's "Dragostea din tei" as part of the chorus, this part is re-sung by Rihanna in a much more appealing form as she gives it some urban appeal. I liked the contrast of the clean chorus from this sampled cut, and then a hard set of beats through the rest of the tune.

**Four Stars**

6. "Whatever You Like"

In reference to his last album, this one has the rapper summerged in his T.I. persona (as opposed to his gritty T.I.P. conuterpart) as he does a tune just for the girls. you have him singing, as well as rapping in this one . It was very suitable, as his harsh accent may be slightly too rough for rapping in a nice way, and so you could tell that with the aid on Jim Jonsin's production he was motivated tyo change his style up.

**Four Stars**

7. "No Matter What"

This is the first single from the album, and I felt that it was too slow to really hype up T.I.'s return, but as he had been away for so long, peole reacted well once he brought this track out.

There a hard drum beat at a slow marching pace throughout this track and it sets up the feeling of this track, quite a negative one where he explains his climb to strive coming out of a difficult situation. The track excalated the beef between him and Shawty Lo, which resulted in Shawty Lo exposing T.I. as a resident of Riverdale and not Bankhead as he previously claimed, but this changes nothing.

**Four Stars**

8. "My Life, Your Entertainment" (feat. Usher)

This one has T.I. do an unexpected collab with A-Town's finest R&B talent in the form of Usher. Yourarely have tracks in which Ush takes a secondary role, but with this one, it's nice to only have Ush take part in the chorus to it, as T.I really needs to make a poitn here by explaining the situation which occurred last year, regarding the firearm-related arrest.

**Four Stars**

9. "Porn Star"

To make it clear what mindset his in for this part of the album, T.I. comes with a sensual track for the ladies here. I found that it possessed similarities which you woudl be able to relate to "Whatever you Like" as the way that the rapper goes about performing the tune in a laid-back manner seems to reflect the way that he is seen to do things in the other single off the album.

**Four Stars**

10. "Swing Ya Rag" (feat. Swizz Beatz)

This tune has T.I. collaborate with Swizz Beatz once again for yet another club banger, especially considering "Bring 'Em Out" (produced by Swizzy) was what allowed T.I. to break through as a mainstream rap artist. It is a lot more reserved than a lot of what is expected by Swizzy's beats, but as he's doing it for Gnagsta Rap, proper dance tunes are out of the question. Thus you have

**Five Stars**

11. "What Up, What's Haapin'"

This track directly refers to T.I.'s beef with Shawty Lo and has him lyrically shot-down his competeion. I wouldn't say that its up there with the great diss tracks of the '90s, but along with the video and hype surrounding it, it seems to have a similar amount of tension surrounding it.

**Four Stars**

12. "Every Chance I Get"

This one has T.I. just having as much fun as he can. It is a nice one to listen to as you can tell that there's absolutely no pressure on the rapper at the time when this was recorded, he just rapped about whatever he wanted, and you can tell this by the content as well as the way in which the words seem to naturally flow from his mouth.

**Three Stars**

13. "Swagga Like Us" (feat. Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne and Kanye West)

The tune, often shortened to "S.L.U", is an unexpected smasher which has T.I, collaborate with the undisputed kings of Hip Hop. To be honest, I hadn't really written up a list of top artists in this genre, but when you have them in front of you, you realise that here you have the best rappers in the game collaborating together in an experimental piece, produced by Kanye West.

Sampling M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes", you have a track which follows the same sort of feel as what alternative sound M.I.A. comes out with here, as Kanye keeps it quite simple with the marching beat, and then he, and the other rappers just do what they do best. Interestingly they all use the T-Pain auto-tuner, matching the sound of M.I.A.'s voice in the hook, and the effect seems to complement the sound of the raps.

As it gradually began to build, I couldn't imagine what T.I. would sound like with such an effect, and luckily we didn't have to find out as I'm sure it wouldn't have suited his chilled speach as with the other rappers, who have all recently been known to experiment with the technique (Kanye on "Lollipop (Remix)", Jay-Z on "Put On (Remix)" and Lil' Wayne on just about every tune he's recorded since his last album, "Tha Carter III".

**Five Stars**

14. "Slide Show" (feat. John Legend)

I was expecting to hear T.I. performing a track with Joh Legend, but since the run-up to Legend's new album has come, it seem like he's a good choice to work with, as he's got a lot of momentum going for himslef at this time. have to say that aside fom the well put-together production from kanye, this one didn't really work for me and it was all too clean for me, and didn't really do thie things I like T.I. for, but as it is along the same lines that the Soul musican John Lenged does, it does make sense to go in this direction.

**Two Stars**

15. "You Ain't Missin' Nothin"

As with the track which came before this one, you have T.I. rapping to some piano-bass music to match his shift in emotions, here you have an emotionally-charged track which has him talk about life without his friend and how things have changed since he's gone whilst in prison. Since he has experienced it all himself, it's very authentic and would probably mean a lot to whoever it's directed towards.

**Three Stars**

16. "Dead and Gone" (feat. Justin Timberlake)

After there great collab in 2006 with "My love", T.I. come to work with T.I once agian, and just as before you seem to have beats which suit both of the artist, especially since Timberlake has worked closely with Timbaland for so long, it sound to have a lot of his style of drum work added to it. i foudn that this was a great way to end the release and it certainly gives a good lasting impression upon the labum.

**Three Stars**

A few tunes were turned away from the album, and managed to get leaked, a recommend that if you enjoy this album, then you should also find "Let My Beat Pound".

"Hunt 'Em Down"

This is a very hard track as T.I. comes right up into your face with some hardcore intimidating lyrics about attempting to hunt down and kill people, and it doesn't somund fake as most artists who do this, he raps it with a passion.

The reason for this is as it was recorded directly after his friend, Philant, died in 2006. He just saved it up to release it with this album because it didn't fit in with "T.I. vs. T.I.P." at all. So all of T.I.'s emotions at the time are expressed here with a rage an aggression which you don't doubt.

He says that he didn't even want it released as the quality of the raps and Toomp's production weren't really on the level that they are today, so it's no surprise that I didn't really enjoy it, but I appreciated that he need to express his emotions at the time through music.

**Four Stars**

For me this album is quite varied in terms of both quality and actual material as T.i chnges his style in lots of different ways just as he has since about the relase of "Urban Legend", although I can appreciate that he shows lots of diffrent aspects to his personality and music, sometimes he goes a little too far into his emotional side for my liking, and this could prevent people from believing the harder material.

Early in the record there ins't much enrgy, but the strength of his rhymes keep you focussed in, however once the club tracks and the singles come out, you find it hard to dislike the material. I foudn that after this period passed, he went into some really broing tracks which seemed to really put me off. I would have to say that this is far from being one of his best albums, but I still expect it to sell well and top the US Billboards Charts in its first week. In comparison to his newest albums, I would say that this one is weaker than "urabn Legend" "T.I. vs T.I.P.", but better than "King". I expected a lot more from it, but he did give me a few suprising collaborations through the album. 

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