2 Chainz seems to have mastered that skill. To last this long in the fickle music industry, it takes adaptability. The sequel to Chainz’s ColleGrove album with Lil Wayne is complete and on the way, as well as an LP entirely produced by Statik Selektah. His seventh major label solo album, Dope Don’t Sell Itself, dropped last month, with a deluxe version coming out in late March that has additional songs, including a track with Justin Bieber. He’s a record label owner, with artists like Skooly and Sleepy Rose signed to T.R.U. The 44-year-old rapper's flagship restaurant, Escobar Restaurant and Tapas, is located two buildings down and currently filled with night-lifers.īorn Tauheed Epps, 2 Chainz’s decorated 25-year career as a member of the duo Playaz Circle and as a solo artist includes two platinum albums, a dozen platinum singles, a 2017 Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance and countless hip-hop quotables. Pick the sequel over the original and get ready for some stinky, dank, and fun me time.It’s a chilly Friday night in late February, and 2 Chainz is getting a mani-pedi in Pamper Nail Studio, one of his many business ventures in the brick building-lined Castleberry Hill neighborhood near downtown Atlanta. II adds some Bootsy Collins charisma and ambitious ringleader style to his discography. 2 Chainz is still a punch-line rapper at heart, but B.O.A.T.S. Highlight "36" rumbles the trunk and makes a hook out herb measurements ("36, that's how many ounces in a briiiiiiiiiiick") while "Where U Been?" is heartbreak 2 Chainz and Mike Will Made-It style with betrayal lyrics going ghetto ("Bought a new crib just to f*ck you in") over hypnotic, pounding production. Still, these ambitious moments are just icing on the cake since the base of the album is the solid, silly, and trend-setting club tracks that fans expect, all of them delivered effortlessly and overflowing with simple street wit.
Like Jay-Z's "99 Problems," "Feds Watching" is a great number inspired by a police traffic stop ("I pray to the lord and ask for forgiveness/If he popped my trunk I can get a life sentence") but this time with Pharrell on the funky production and soulful hook, then there's the Mannie Fresh production "Black Unicorn," which features grand, elegant strings, and the last thing you'd expect on a 2 Chainz album: beat poetry.
Even so, the album is full of surprises, starting with Fergie's undeniably awesome stoner reference (even the snobbiest weed head should respect "You smoke that Bobby Brown, we on that Shabba Ranks"), and spanning all the way to the rebirth of rapper Mase, who drops a poignant look back at his troubled career during the somewhat sane stunner "Beautiful Pain" ("Call me a hypocrite, backstabber, you name it I done heard it/The way they speak of me you think I'm already murdered").
That's "serious" as in "significant" since the "METIME" on the cover references to 2 Chainz desire that this album feel like a vacation, and with the greatest hook here being a duet with Fergie that goes "Let's make a sex tape and put it on Netflix," the concept of vacation-on-wax (or mp3) is at the very center of the rapper's comfort zone. Story," a reference to the rapper's debut album, but "best of all time" isn't a bad guess after all because 2 Chainz's sophomore release is one serious step up.
Don't get it twisted G.O.A.T.-style because those initials on the cover stand for " Based on a T.R.U.