Trick Daddy, born Maurice Young, has amassed quite a bit of both popularity and clout with Rap fans below the Mason Dixon line. With his current stardom, it’s almost ironic to think that six and a half years ago he was simply trying to break himself out beyond that aforementioned imaginary border. The Miami native (Trick was born and raised in Miami’s Liberty City, arguably the city’s roughest area) finally got some major airplay with “Shut Up,” his biggest hit since 1998’s “Nann Nigga,” and also the lead single off of Book of Thugs: Chapter AK, Verse 47. And if you followed Trick Daddy’s career up to this point, you know exactly what to expect.
Trick was not new to the Rap scene at this point (he released Based on a True Story…, his debut, under the name Trick Daddy Dollars three years prior). He was and still is, undoubtedly, one of the hungriest southern rappers to ever receive some major airplay. Trick’s subject matter was nothing original, but his presentation is light-years ahead of the competition. He would eventually progress through his career and lean more towards Pop-oriented topic matter and become less concerned with the thug themes he relied on in past material, but that doesn’t keep his once darker approach to music any less entertaining. Trick’s aged output was much gritter than the rest (competition included) and that is no more evident than on Book of Thugs’ 17 tracks.
The most prominent material on this particular release, as per usual with Trick’s older works, is the thug tracks. It may be his first album on a major label, but Trick’s formula remained largely the same as that on Based on a True Story… and its excellent follow-up www.thug.com. The gritty, almost haunting “Thug Life Again” is the alpha and omega of the gangsta tracks that can be found on this LP; none of them quite measure up to this one. Harsh, uncompromising lyrics which revolve around breaking a crew member out of prison and upholding thug laws, not to mention the vicious, skittering production, are unmatched by anything else that this album has to offer.
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