T.I. - Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head (Album Review)

Release Date : December 18, 2012
Label :  Grand Hustle/Atlantic Records

T.I. gets rejuvenated on his 8th album Trouble Man: Heavy is the Head. His 2010 Album No Mercy was rushed and underwhelming, but now hes focused and back to putting out good music. Trouble Man was actually supposed to come out in 2011 but it kept getting pushed back due to not having that monster single his label was looking for. He released videos for I'm Flexin' featuring Big K.R.I.T. and Here Ye, Here Ye featuring Pharrell, but they were just warm up singles. Alot of people wrote him off and labeled him with "fell off" tag. After listening to this album I think its safe to say this is his best work since 2008's Paper Trail.

The album kicks off with The Introduction, which sees T.I. sampling Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man, the hook is similar to Rubberband Man but slightly different, as it goes "Trouble man, always in trouble man/ Grand hustle man, I'm the m**********n' man Trouble Man, stays in some trouble man/ Bank rolls, rubber band, you can call me Trouble Man". \Go Get It, Wildside featuring A$AP Rocky, G Season featuring Meek Mill and Trap Back Jumpin are bound to be club bangers. Then on Addresses, T.I. fires back at his detractors on, who was rumored to be Alley Boy and Trouble. On Can You Learn featuring R. Kelly, they wanna know if you are willing to learn how to love a man thats always into trouble

Other standouts are Hello featuring Cee Lo Green and Sorry featuring André 3000, on the latter T.I. has no apologies or regrets on his two verses and Andre 3000 takes a different approach and apologizes to his Mother and his partner in rhyme Big Boi, he raps This that shit that'll make you call your momma/ Say hey I'm sorry for begging for all them clothes you couldn't afford/ And this the type of shit that'll make you call your rap partner/ And say I'm sorry I'm awkward, my fault for f****n' up the tours/ I hated all the attention so I ran from it.

And on Guns and Roses featuring P!nk, T.I. talks about being in a love/hate relationship, T.I. dropped the ball by not making that a single, it was perfect crossover pop song. Trouble Mas isn't perfect though, The Way We Ride could of been left off. Cruisin' is nothing but a carbon copy of his 2008 hit Whatever You Like. Ball featuring Lil Wayne is kinda weak even though the hook is catchy. Missteps aside Tip is back in full force. The production is good, we get knocking beats from 1500 or Nothin', T-Minus, Lil C, DJ Toomp and many more. 

 4/5