From Dope Boyz in The Trap to Dime Trap... The King delivers!

From being dropped from his first label, self proclaimed himself the King of Da South, serving several times in jail, etc, T.I. has release his 10th album, "Dime Trap" under his label Grand Hustle and Epic Records. With the help of the narration from Dave Chappelle, the album features Young Jeezy, Meek Mill, Victoria Monet, Anderson Paak, Yo Gotti, Young Thug and more. Let's see what the originator of Trap Muzik has to give us.

The album starts off with the song "Seasons" featuring Sam Hook and the narration of Dave Chappelle. T.I. raps about how he came up from hustling in the streets to be an entrepreneur, not wasting his time with negative or lame people, and how his marriage struggled from the fame and building his own empire like Jay-Z and Damon Dash did .The slow instrumental is a good way to start this album, and the song ends with a reference of T.I.'s song Trap Muzik from his second album Trap Muzik, which was dropped 2003. The following track got me all fired up when I heard the famous Just Blaze shout at the beginning of "Laugh At Em", and T.I. was all charged up on that song. Just like his other Just Blaze produced tracks such as "I'm Talking To You" and "Help is Coming", T.I. has a fast flow and bars for days, from doing references about him being Darth Vader and his haters being Skywalker, mentioning the injustice towards black people that influenced the Black Live Matters movement, another reference about a scene from the movie "Menace II Society" and comparing himself to 2Pac and Jay-Z. "Big Ol Drip" is featuring Watch The Duck and has a nice melodic piano for the instrumental. The next song featuring Yo Gotti, is called "Wraith". The instrumental is a well Trap Music type of beat with a good bass because Scott Storch is the man behind the beat with Avedon. Both T.I. and Yo Gotti had nice flows that fitted well with the beat, and at the end of the song, Dave Chappelle has a little conversation with T.I., and Dave made me laugh at the end but then again he is one the funniest man on the planet. "The Weekend" is a Swizz Beatz production featuring Young Thug, which is your average song about girls type of beat.

"The Amazing Mr. F**k Up" featuring Victoria Monet, is just like the title of the song itself, amazing lyrics and deep meaning. T.I. speaks about, no matter how smart he is, he always find a way to mess things up, especially his relationship with the mother of his children, Tiny. He goes into his infidelity and a little bit about his gun charges. We can hear at the end of the song, a scene between T.I. and Lauren London from the movie ATL. The following song is called "At Least I Know" featuring Anderson Paak. This song is similar to "The Amazing Mr. F**k Up", where both rappers talk about loving their ladies and spoiling them with expensive materials that no other men could provide for them, but yet they're still doing stupid actions and decisions which can or make their ladies walk away. Album halfway done, the track "What Can I say" has another narration from Dave Chappelle. In this song, T.I. explains how he came and represented his hood, "Bankhead" to become a successful artist. The Banglasdesh produced track featuring Meek Mill is titled "Jefe" which means Boss. The two rappers talk about, how much money they got and how much they can spend, the cars they drive and the expensive attire they wear on this Spanish sound on the instrumental. The 10th track of Dime Trap is "More & More" featuring T.I.'s "brother", Young Jeezy. The two Trap King, have proved on this banging track, why they are the originators of Trap Music.

"Pray For Me" is featuring YFN Lucci with an outro from Dave Chappelle. The song has a nice instrumental, but I was a bit disappointed because I thought T.I. would have a smooth flow on his verse just like YFN Lucci, but his flow was more rough than smooth. "Looking Back" is produced by David Banner, and on this song, T.I. raps mostly about what happened in his past. From growing up and hustling in the streets, standing tall against the LAPD with rapper The Game and Los Angeles gang members, his beef with Houston rapper Lil' Flip, his longtime friend, Big Phil getting killed and having a snitch in his crew, yet T.I. still remains on top of his game, no matter what. The song "Light Day" is the smoothest song of the album so far and I really enjoyed listening to it, and to make the song more special, it's produced by T.I.'s oldest son, Messiah Harris. Not bad for a production debut from the young Harris. "You" is featuring Teyana Taylor, who's signed to Kanye West's label, "G.O.O.D Music", and yes she does sound like the WeekND. This song is another lyrically and mature T.I. who raps about what's wrong with the U.S. government, the young ladies who prefer to show their bodies then developing their mind, the G Code in the streets, and T.I. also states a powerful bar on this song, "You so judgmental 'cus you miserable." The last song of the album is called "Be There" featuring London Jae. T.I. is known for ending his albums with a deep meaning type of song with a "Don't give up on your life" or "Always be better" theme, and Be There is no different.

In overall, T.I. has proved throughout this album why he is a Trap Music originator, and he also explained the origins of it. His lyrically ability hasn't fell off and album after album, we always see TIP maturing through his life and career. It was also nice to see that he brought some old friends to work on Dime Trap, such as Jeezy, David Banner, Just Blaze and Scott Storch, and seeing his son produce one song on the album and the narration of Mr. Dave Chappelle was good and funny.

Album Grade: 4.3/5