More Or Less ‘Me Time’? - Flashback Fridays

I have been a fan of Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz since he was Tity Boi and a part of hip-hop duo Playaz Circle. When he went solo through mixtapes and his debut studio album (still a favorite of mine, by the way), I was right there listening as loudly as anyone.  I’m saying this preface the hard truth I must share right now.

B.O.A.T.S. II: Me Time is a pretty lackluster album, in my view. It’s good but nowhere near as good as the first.

The sequel to the popular Based On A T.R.U. Story doesn’t seem to have the same sort of gravitas (probably not the word to use to describe to a 2 Chainz album but I’m using it) or inherent fun that its predecessor boasted. This isn’t to say it doesn’t have it’s moments.

Here are few.

“Feds Watching” is quite catchy when you listen to it. As a movie fanatic the production reminds me of 1980s Miami and Scarface. There’s a almost Latin groove in it that makes me feel as if maybe the word was mine. Plus I thoroughly love the feature of Pharrell and the ending where they speak in Jamaican Patois. All in all, a rather nice track.

“Beautiful Pain” was intriguing because I had never heard 2 Chainz and Ma$e on a track before. Maybe this was what made me even go to this track. It’s a almost cool track with  each rapper discussing things in their lives that could be seen as ‘beautiful pain’. I would also like to note that Ma$e’s flow on this track is damn near identical to the one he gave us on a track from the G.O.O.D. Music album Cruel Summer. The track’s called “Higher”, if you wanted to check it out.

“Black Unicorn” is mostly murdered by the poetic stylings of the gorgeous Chrisette Michelle. To be completely honest, I couldn’t tell you exactly what 2 Chainz was rapping on here. At a quick listen I imagine this is an introspective  track. That’s pretty much all I can tell you here.

“Netflix” is probably my favorite mostly by default. I say this mostly because the lines of this track make me laugh so much that I like it. Here’s one line, the line where the song derives its name from:

I smoked a blunt for dinner, another blunt for breakfast
2 Chainz, got 'em staring at my necklace
Let's make a sex tape and put it on Netflix
Let's make a sex tape and put it on Netflix

Fergie is the featured artist here. Her verse is rather good, despite the fact she’s not strictly a rapper. Take a look:

When I die, bury me inside the liquor store
Cause when I die, Fergie still gon' be gettin' dough
You do what you can, I do what you can't
You smoke that Bobby Brown, we on that Shabba Ranks
I got it, you want it, you want it, I got it
My girls go shopping, that ain't a mall, that's my closet
So copy, copy, all these bitches just copy
Honor student wit' double Ds, that ain't the bra, that's my ta-tas

I won’t really suggest any tracks to you simply because I really didn’t like the rest of the project. It’s hard to type but that’s the feeling right now.

Often they say rappers need to go back to their mixtapes to find what they had before going mainstream. This may be a good idea for 2 Chainz. I don’t hate the album but I certainly don’t love it.

A little less me time, I think.


Written by Lucius Black 2013