I remember during the whole Nas “Hip-Hop is Dead” fiasco how offended all southern artists were and their reaction. From Jeezy airing out God’s Son on the air to Ludacris rocking a T-shirt in a video that read, “Hip-hop isn’t dead. It moved to the south.” At the time a dude like me felt that he was bugging with that shirt and its statement. You have to take into account that this was during the whole Crunk movement. I couldn’t really ever get into that. But fast forward a couple of years and I’d rock that same shirt Luda had and say, “Word!”

From Luda to Jeezy to T.I., the south—namely ATL—has been dropping so much heat on wax that they’ve become the candle region up to this point. Jeezy’s verses on Maino’s “All Of The Above" RMX and Wayne’s “Always Strapped" RMX will hold down trappers in these streets longer than these rats can take them off of them. Then you take some of T.I.’s redemption material like “The Way You Want It” and you have something for the reformed G’s trying to keep their head above water in the hood. You gotta give it to a MC like T.I. Even when he isn’t spitting that killer-gangster ish, his rhymes are still articulate and on a level few can touch. But don’t think he done forgot about the rubber band ballers in the streets. For them he got “Hell Of A Life” and “All Nite” talking about, “That nigga ain’t a playa/he say it’s a recession, shit, me, I can’t tell/which is why we ball like/(Heeeey! We gon’ be at it all nite!)” Straight vintage, conceited T.I. right there.

Make a mixtape filled with T.I., Jeezy and a few Shawty Lo joints and we have ourselves a banger. My only problem aside from that fact that OutKast material was M.I.A., was the abundance of Gucci Maine and OJ Da Juiceman material. Dude’s sound so southern generic with their music. On “Problems” you got Gucci saying, “”Problems I ain’t got ‘em/pills I pop ‘em/iced out Yorkie make your girlfriend jock ‘em/somebody stop him/somebody get ‘em/he’s crazy as a fool and he got them gold wheelin’” and then you got OJ going “Aye!” on the background of every other bar on every damn song he has. People used to say Puff was annoying on the background of Big’s records. At least the man sounded smooth and actually added momentum to the rhymes. OJ sounding like he’s in OZ and Adebisi done got a hold of his ass. Other than that, ATLiens is just more evidence that the south got the game on smash while my city fell asleep at the wheel and the West is creeping back up on the low-low.-The Infamous O

Hottest Joint: Take your pic…

Weakest Joint: Anything OJ Da Juice Man said “Aye!” on…

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