On the skit that opens his third album, Thugs Are Us, Liberty City's thug prince, Trick Daddy, converses with a youngster smoking on the street corner, who seems to have taken his music a little too seriously. "Don't be... more » like me nigga, be yourself," he advises the corrupted minor. Cue "I'm a Thug," where an angelic chorus of streetwalkers sympathizes sweetly as the slurry MC drawls an affirmation of his ghetto identity. The remainder of the album features a predictable but engaging trunk of funk that soundtracks Trick Daddy's cartoonish pimp exploits. It runs from the James Brown-jacking "Take It to the House" to the 1980s New Wave swoosh of "Noodles" and the loved-up gangsta sounds of "N-Word." "Where You From" rotates with a robotic voice and a satisfactory thump, and features an appearance from Daddy's "little goil," Trina. And when she opens her mouth, out spill filthy rhymes galore. She returns on "For All My Ladies," a ghetto version of "Independent Woman" cut to a holler of "Get Money!!" But Trick blows the emancipation proclamation by preceding it with a version of Ice-T's "99 Problems," a list of all the tricky women in his little black book of rhymes. Times may change but Trick Daddy's doesn't. --Chris Campion« less
On the skit that opens his third album, Thugs Are Us, Liberty City's thug prince, Trick Daddy, converses with a youngster smoking on the street corner, who seems to have taken his music a little too seriously. "Don't be like me nigga, be yourself," he advises the corrupted minor. Cue "I'm a Thug," where an angelic chorus of streetwalkers sympathizes sweetly as the slurry MC drawls an affirmation of his ghetto identity. The remainder of the album features a predictable but engaging trunk of funk that soundtracks Trick Daddy's cartoonish pimp exploits. It runs from the James Brown-jacking "Take It to the House" to the 1980s New Wave swoosh of "Noodles" and the loved-up gangsta sounds of "N-Word." "Where You From" rotates with a robotic voice and a satisfactory thump, and features an appearance from Daddy's "little goil," Trina. And when she opens her mouth, out spill filthy rhymes galore. She returns on "For All My Ladies," a ghetto version of "Independent Woman" cut to a holler of "Get Money!!" But Trick blows the emancipation proclamation by preceding it with a version of Ice-T's "99 Problems," a list of all the tricky women in his little black book of rhymes. Times may change but Trick Daddy's doesn't. --Chris Campion
"I'm a huge trick daddy fan, and his last album Book of Thugs is in my opinion one of the top 10 down south rap albums of all time. This album should be called TRICk DADDY PRESENTS THE SNS EXPRESS. It is just like a compilation, but they use trick daddy's name solely on the cover to get the sales. Songs 4,8,10,11,13-16, and 18 do not even have Trick Daddy on them. That leaves 7 songs with Trick on em, and Americka was already on his last album and he only sings the hook on the pull over remix. So out of those five I would say Cant F Wit the South is good, and Take it to Da House and I am A Thug are great.You get 5 truly trick Daddy songs for your money so you decide. peace mane."
Trick Daddy or Slip N Slide Compilation album
D. Johnson | Rockford, IL United States | 08/28/2001
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Thugs are Us only featured Trick Daddy on half of the tracks. That's fine, but why call it a Trick Daddy CD when its really a group effort? Anyways-aside from that the album is just okay. "Im a Thug", "Can't **** with the South", and "Pull Over (remix)" are all hot tracks..but the majority of the CD is just mediocre. Im not a Trick Daddy hater. In fact-I think www.thug.com is a brilliant album. This album just doesnt have the magic of previous Trick Daddy albums. But the album has already gone platinum so I guess im in the minority. Overall-If you like this album-thats cool, just make sure to pick up www.thug.com as well."
BASICALLY A SLIP AND SLIDE COMPILATION
KaPPaSTyLe4.uno.uno | RICHMOND, VIRGINIA United States | 04/10/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Trick daddy dollars brings the hotness on this joint. But by the end of the cd you cant help but realize Trick took a back seat to his crew....its all good though cause most of them are dope in their own way.. i was just a little disappointed with the lack of trick daddy vocals.. his last 3 albums have been consistent...the production on this joint is hot.....overall i think its about a 4 1/2....add a little more of the MIA's main man and youd have a five........overall dope...best cut-Im a thug and pull over remix.....cop all of tricks albums..."
Inconsistent, but I do understand why
stevey wundar | Houston | 06/11/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Trick Daddy stepped onto the scene (well, mainstream anyway) in 1999 with the hit single "Nann N*gga."
It was a hot party song and continues to be but unfortunately I believe Trick got type-caste so to speak and never did really find a way to break out of that b/c some folks only want to hear his hype party music.
Problem is, Trick, like several other hip hop artists really does have more to offer than just more hype, party music.
I'd say this LP pretty much caught Trick trying to please both worlds.
"Take It 2 Da House" was a hit party single that falls in line with 1999's "Nann N*gga" and 2000's "Shut Up."
Trick can be counted on to always give us a hit summer anthem type song which he does on this album with "Take It 2 Da House" and "I'm a Thug" (incidentally, this single also had an entertaining video with Elise Neal).
You also had Trick tryin' 2 come at us with some real gangsta, G'ed Up, though refreshing hood songs like "Amerika" which is basically breaking things down to the masses about the viewpoint of someone coming from the bottom of society and what kind of image he developed about a country like the U.S.
I've read countless articles and heard interviews where Trick talks about fighting with his label because while he loves doing the party stuff, he said he wasn't being allowed to grow as an artist and put more into his music beyond club, bootyshake anthems.
This album is inconsistent because of this kind of inner struggle so I'd say if you buy this album expecting non-stop dance tracks, you gon' be disappointed.
Yet if you like some of Trick's more deep, introspective tracks but start looking at contradictions, you'll also probably struggle with this CD.
The solution? Buy his earlier stuff from 1999 and 2000 for party music and buy all his stuff post-2001 for more introspective material.
I'm not positive that any Trick albums are masterpieces, but I hope this helps you find exactly what you lookin' 4 if you want a Trick Daddy LP."
IT'S AN OK RAP CD
MICHAEL TAYLOR | RICHMOND, VA USA | 06/02/2004
(3 out of 5 stars)
"AGAIN, THIS IS JUST AN AVERAGE CD. BUT, THAT DOESN'T STOP IT FROM HAVING SOME GOOD TRACKS ON IT. THE BEST SONGS ARE ''I'M A THUG'', ''N WORD'', ''SOMEBODY SHOULDA TOLD YA'', AND ''WHERE U FROM''. NOT THE GREATEST TRICK DADDY CD, BUT IT'S WORTH A LISTEN."