T.I.
Paperwork
***
No mediocre album.
TI returns to the scene with a much cleaner album than before. Paperwork comes at a time when the rapper hasn’t had any recent trouble with police and was out of prison for the entire time it was produced.
The first popular jam has to be No Mediocre which features his signed artist, Nicki Minaj’s competition, Iggy Azalea. The club anthem will be the first thing you will look forward to, but once you have listened to more material you will easily forget about it. Like, for instance, the lesser known Oh Yeah, which features Pharrell and his catchy hook. The song gets you singing along 10 seconds in, and a whole lot more than you did on Get Lucky after that. Just to illustrate that he is no one-trick pony, Pharrell brings a bluesy idea to Paperwork which clarifies why he was executive producer on this project.
Chris Brown steps in with a mellow chorus on Private Show which needs little imagination as to what they are talking about. While there is a wide array of songs that could have made title tracks, About The Money had the most potential. Featuring sensational new rapper, Young Thug, the song does play into the current sing-song genre of hip hop that’s popular today. As a hip hop album, TI has done really well for himself.