Ludacris

Ludacris: Release Therapy

I’m not much for rap.  Back up about seven or eight years ago, when the Wu-Tang Clan was still fresh, when Tupac wasn’t living in Cuba after faking his own death and Diddy was still known by his original name, and yeah, then I was into the music…but like all original expressions of art, Rap just went commercial.  Probably had before that…just took me longer to notice.

However, suffice it to say I don’t listen to much rap, for the simple reason that I find a total lack of innovation going on these days.  My only exposure to Ludacris has been from the occasional kitschy action movie. Listening to “Release Therapy”, Ludacris’ new CD reminds me of the weakness of a musical form that abandons innovation in favour of catch-phrases and throw-away lines designed to solicit their way into the pop-culture vernacular.

Songs like “Girls Gone Wild” just seem about three years too late for their relevance to current Internet “Water Cooler” talk and the catch line of “I’m lookin’ for some Girls Gone Wild” sounds more like it was written by a middle-aged White Marketing Executive than by a Black rapper who pioneered Southern Rap.

Likewise, the first single off the CD, “Money Maker” is appropriately catchy, filled with the requisite number of genital, fecal and sexual expletives (Radio edited out rather ham-fistedly, I might add) and is sure to become one of the most requested rap tracks of the fall at the local stuck-in-the-1980s strip-mall nightclub scene.

I’m sorry but this CD is just plain tired, along with most of the stuff that I’ve been listening to that passes itself off as “street” music these days.  “Release Therapy” music has about as much to do with “the Street” as the musical “Rent” had to do with the problems faced by out of work Generation-Xers in the early 1990s.    

Even I’m shocked at how unimpressed I am after listening to this album.

Ludacris: Release Therapy