King: A Review of T.I.'s Fourth Album

In 2006, you couldn't escape T.I.'s What You Know. But then again why would you want to? Its combination of epic-sounding production and clever lyrics made it a critical and commercial hit.Its tone also exemplified T.I.'s fourth studio album, bold and confident...not to mention a bit aggressive. But the aggression is less so the empty gangster posturing commonly found on rap albums. Here, T.I. is insistent on respect, a thematic preoccupation on this and previous albums. And for a rapper whose previous effort, the generally solid Urban Legend (read review), sold over a million copies, you might think he would be content.

But this is T.I. after all, a rapper often compared to perhaps the most ambitious rapper alive Jay-Z. T.I. spent most of the previous three or four years trying to convince his peers, his fans, and his detractors, that he was the "King of the South." Urban Legend was a more strident defense of that claim than its predecessor, 2003's excellent Trap Muzik. King, on the other hand was written by a man who has realized some measure of the respect he is seeking and has now vastly broadened his objectives. It's similar in a way to Jay-Z's Volume 2 Hard Knock Life(read review); one of the major themes of that album's predecessor, In My Lifetime Vol. 1 (read review) was Jay-Z's ambition to replace the Notorious B.I.G. as the so-called "King of the New York." But by Volume 2, however, Jay-Z was largely free from this fixation, seemingly more concerned with national dominance.

With King, T.I. in many ways has moved beyond the boundaries of his particular territory. Sure there are the obligatory territorial tracks, such as Told You So, I'm Straight, Undertaker, and I'm Talking to You. But the later is telling in his name-checking of both Southern and non-Southern rappers he's cool with. Further, while this album boasts fewer non-Southern rapper features than Urban Legend, the subject matter is both less insular and more ready for radio than that of the previous album. There's the airy Why You Wanna, the epic Mannie Fresh production Top Back, the mournful Live in the Sky, and the mellow Ride Wit Me, for starters, along with the aforementioned regal What You Know. Further distancing King from Urban Legend is that more of the potential singles actually work; Urban Legend was full of would-be pop crossovers, complete with pop features like Lil Kim and Nelly, that simply were too bland. By contrast Goodlife (with Common and Pharrell), along with Stand Up Guy and Get It could have easily worked on urban radio given the proper marketing push.

The improvement in songwriting, the uniformly excellent production, and T.I.'s lyrics and inimitable charm, make King a career defining-moment. This is the end of the regional "King of the South" T.I. and the beginning of national superstar T.I. King is all the evidence anyone needs to realize why he, in all likelihood, deserves his moniker.

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