Ludacris: Theater Of The Mind
8.5/10
Ludacris, or Chris Bridges to his Hollywood fans, is on the crux of a rare occurance for most MC's. He has created a successful movie career and he's managed to stay relevant while still keeping his stock in hip-hop, even though he's still overlooked by many other artists in the game today.
Cris embraces this idea on "Theater of the Mind", fighting back his detractors while successfully merging the double headed monster of movies and music into a conceptual album. Taking a page out of a musical script, Ludacris sprinkles guests (read: co-stars) throughout each "scene" that tells a different story, and for the most part it works.
"Everybody Hates Chris", produced by DJ Don Cannon features legendary comedian Chris Rock as Ludacris flexes his ability to be lyrically impressive and hilarious at the same time ("rappers still talkin shit like they was rhymin in farts"), while Luda flexes his muscle with Nas and Jay-Z on "I Do It For Hip-Hop" and stands his ground against the former foes turned friends.
If there is one thing the album does have against it, is that it feels bloated at times. There is only two songs where Luda rocks solo, and a few of the "co-stars" are head scratchingly random (Spike Lee? Floyd Mayweather? Ok....) or dont accurately match up to Luda lyrically.
"Theater" is Luda's most enjoyable LP yet, and it stands as one of the top ten albums of the year, adequately proving that he's possibly one of the most slept on artists in the game right now.
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