T.I. - US Or Else EP

T.I.
US Or Else
2016
Spotify

Forged in the crucible of the 2016 Police violence T.I. returns after a long break from the music game and really instantly makes his presences known. From the outset this is a protest album, a rallying call for all to wake up and see just what the fuck is going on in African American communities. There have been plenty of songs in the Trap world that have taken on similar themes, but no quite as direct and clear as Tip Harris is able to do here. These are songs that you really can get hyped to but then the message hits you and you have to do a double take. How do we respond when a song is good, ,but the message is also important? For T.I. they are one in the same. He could write this down on a piece of paper and it might mean something, but if He can put this information in your ear track after track it is much more likely going to stick. The first two tracks are Trap heavy, but "Warzone" has a more classic hip hop beat featuring a chant of "hands up/can't breathe" as the chorus. On the track T.I. goes it solo lining up each and every one of the things that have been pissing him off lately and they all land. T.I. also does not sacrifice his rapping skills to get in line with the way Trap forces rappers to slow down. He gets aggressive and just goes for it, its a new sound and a welcome one because the Trap style can get boring.

"40 Acres" which features Killer Mike of Run the Jewels sounds more like a RTJ track than a T.I. one, but T.I. is able to hold his ground with Mike. Both rappers are some of the best making music right now, and their skill is on full display with this track. It also happens to be a massive middle finger to Trump and the Police. What is really interesting about this EP is that T.I. moves so effortlessly between different styles of hip hop. His voice never changes, the track just seems to move around him allowing his words to shine brighter than anything else. It is a short EP at only 22 minutes but the impact is quite more forceful than that. With a lot of artists making sudo political statements with their music, and a great deal of generic "fuck trump" out there, it is nice to see someone actually using these issues as fuel for their art rather than exploiting it. It may have been a long time since we heard music from T.I. but clearly the man has not lost a single step.

7.8 out of 10