Keep out of Deen’s business. Unless you’re planning on paying him for said business.
To be fair, I wasn’t expecting T.I. to hop right back in the saddle as if nothing happened – you know, with the jail troubles and all – but I was beginning to get a bit worried for the man. After all, he is (or are we going with “was”?) one of the few blue-chip rap superstars that’s capable of getting and staying on the pop charts without going all Flo-Rida/”Starships” on us. Yet his efforts to return to that spot were starting to resemble the first signs of struggle.
Personally, methinks Tip stepped back into the limelight a little too quickly for his own good. Ultimately, he won’t lose anything by approaching his comeback the way he did, but we essentially had to watch him get his fighting legs back over the last few months. Not the most comforting thing to witness in today’s extremely fickle rap world. Thankfully for us (and him), Atlantic Records seem to believe in him quite a bit (or they know he’s such a cash-cow that they had no other choice than to be patient with him) and granted him the opportunity to toss out promo single after promo single to what can only be described as tepid applause. Honestly, I heard more about his reality show than I did his music and I’ve never actually seen his reality show. I hear one of his sons is a riot – thinks he’s white or some shit. I could be wrong about that.
So after I’m “Flexin,” “Hear Ye Hear Ye,” “We Don’t Get Down Like Y’all,” Pyro and an entire mixtape (Fuck Da City Up – decent effort by the way), T.I. finally manages to flame on with “Go Get It.” I’m not saying that T.I. ever lost the bars or anything like that – he’s sounded sharp throughout his singles slump – but he seemed to have lost his ability to balance his street sneer with his pop instincts, which meant that he didn’t have the street single/banger to pair with the girly single (“Love This Life” – a very good, if mellow, pop rap ditty. I dig it).
In “Go Get It,” he finally has a banger worthy of garnering enough attention to get momentum rolling for the album. The hook is pure motivational music and the familiar T.I. attitude is back in full effect throughout the verses. He’s really stunting on us outchea – hard – I’m almost jealous, but I don’t know enough timepieces to care about Vacheron Constantin anyway. The production from T-Minus (this kid is one of my top ten Canadians ever, right in between Bieber and the band Rush), isn’t as grimy as T.I.’s usual street single fare; but it’s propulsive and electronic enough to get this on DJ sets everywhere. T.I. isn’t reinventing the wheel with this one and some of my twitter folks still don’t think this is the one, but I’m willing to bet the contents of my 401K on this one getting the full promo push along with support from the streets and clubs. Whatever happens with the song and T.I.’s Trouble Man (slated for September), I’m just glad that T.I. seems to be back – for real this time…
Download:
MP3: T.I. – “Go Get It” (Left-Click)
