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Shawty Lo - Units In The CityAlbum Review by:
John Burnett
Friday, February 29, 2008
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Don’t front, D4L’s Shawty Lo banged out a hit with “Dey Know.” The Mandrill-sampled “Dey Know” picks up where “I’m Da Man” left off with Lo boastfully proclaiming his mayoral status in the A and in general…pretty straight-forward right? Lo’s ability to simply and charismatically phrase how he feels over trunk-slapping beats is what’s scored him a following despite the obvious lack of lyricism. Lo’s debut Units in the City continues the trend with anthemic, chorus-driven trunk rattlers.
I honestly thought I’d be buried by and bored with dope boy-isms mid-way through but Shawty Lo shows some alternative looks on Units. On the reflective “Feels Good to Be Here” and the semi-autobiographical “Live My Life,” featuring Kool Ace, Lo is portrayed as thankful and socially-conscious, respectively (“why things gotta be the way they be? /I thought Abe Lincoln said we was free/from the things I’ve seen that cannot be/in the courtroom they’ll railroad me/the laws of justice are colorblind?/then why my partners got all this time?”). Then there’s the quasi-romantic “Count on Me” where making it rain takes on a different meaning if you get my drift. Slightly singing and rhyming in the drawled out whisper that’s signature to Lo, he muses about lavish shopping sprees with a lady friend. But Lo is at his best on celebratory trap-boy records like “GA Lotto” where Lo boasts of holding small faced hundreds from the early 90s and rehashes a crowd favorite with the line “the last time I checked I’m the man in these streets/they know I’m Lo/I’m C-E-O.” Similarly, “Foolish” brags about spending dope money recklessly (“$7,000 on a clean white tee”) over the blaring horns provided by Drumma Boy. Disappointingly “Foolish” produces another “I’m Lo/I’m C-E-O” moment but slides by on a catchy chorus. “Dunn, Dunn” proves to be something like “I’m Da Man” part II and proves to be just as good. Crashing cymbals are the backsplash for this ode to Bankhead (a segment of inner city Atlanta) that has Lo taking a slick jab to an unnamed Atlantan who also claims Westside Atlanta too. The album concludes with an anti-climactic D4L reunion on “We Gon Ride,” a response to those who thought D4L had broken up.
Don’t get it twisted. Units in the City is hardly lyrical exercise, but it’s damn good at what it sets out to do. The formula is simple: 808-heavy tracks plus good hooks and dope-infused rhymes. Said formula is virtually perfected at different points of the album (“Easily I Approach”). What can be appreciated about Lo’s approach on Units is that its %100 him. It’s not diluted generic raps over the producer du jour spawned for the purpose of sales. He used mostly local and in-house producers and cooked up a good product. What sucks about the album is weak lyrical moments like “twinkle, twinkle I’m a stiz-ar/peep the iz-ice and the ki-zar.” If you’re looking for something you can get crunk to, ride to et cetera I strongly recommend Units in the City. If you’re looking for life lessons…this ain’t it.
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