Newly realigned with
Ludacris' Disturbing the Peace,
Chingy looks hard to repeat the success he had with "Right Thurr" on
Hate It or Love It, trying to mix his singsongy vocals with synth-and-bass-heavy beats. He's all swagger and tough talk, but the production's so fluffy, moving from club-ready to third-rate Casio beats that do nothing to aid
Chingy's already suspect rhymes, that it's hard to believe he's anything more than, well, the man who brought the world "Right Thurr." The rapper's certainly not known for his lyrics, relying instead on catchy riffs and drums to propel his songs across radios nationwide. "2 Kool 2 Dance" (is that like "2 Legit 2 Quit"?) uses a decent
L.T. Moe half-hyphy beat, but the hook (the title repeated ad infinitum) can't quite redeem itself as dance- or rock-worthy, and the other songs follow suit, whether they're boasts about his cars, his women, his clothes, or the sheer amount of cash he has. To his credit,
Chingy speaks repeatedly of one woman he's fallen for, who he wants to be with and spend money on ("What's mines is yours," he says in "Spend Some $"), and two tracks toward the end of the album even border on the reflective ("Lovely Ladies," about his love for his mother, grandmother, and sisters, and "How We Feel," about the way blacks are treated in America, and containing the perhaps subversive Obama endorsement "I don't think we ready for a lady president/It's evident that it's a man's world, so it's irrelevant"). ~ Marisa Brown