Ludacris: The Red Light District : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Everybody loves Ludacris these days: in a volatile hip-hop world, he's Mr. Reliable, the Atlanta spark plug who spits party-hearty anthems the way Manny Ramirez pounds home runs. If you're mad he's on top, then wish him gone. If you're mad he's right, then wish him wrong. But you can always count on Luda to get right to the point, with chant-along choruses and cheap-shit jokes over his woofer-blowing club beats. On The Red Light District, his fourth album, he shouts out to right-wing Fox meathead Bill O'Reilly, who denounced Ludacris a few years ago for corrupting the youth of America. Now that O'Reilly has his own "mo' money, mo' problems" scandal, Ludacris has a few kind words: "Hi, Mr. O'Reilly!/Hope everything's well!/Kiss the plaintiff and the wifey!"

On The Red Light District, Ludacris doesn't sweat the technique. On these sixteen tracks, you can rest assured the man will drink, drug, cruise for ladies, make money and shoot pool at the Ludaplex. He will compare himself to the Pillsbury Doughboy ("Women poke my guts/Still I walk around the streets like I'm broke as fuck"). He will boast: "Nobody light-skinned did rappin' harder since Ice-T." He will check out your lady; he'd like to borrow her, if she's a swallower. He teams up with Nas and Doug E. Fresh for the killer old-school tribute "Virgo" and gets extremely low with Trick Daddy on "Hopeless." Sleepy Brown and Organized Noize guest on the strange dancehall-style cheeba puff "Blueberry Yum Yum." DMX joins for "Put Your Money," where Luda and X boast about their gambling problems, and Nate Dogg croons along with the Teena Marie-flavored "Child of the Night." During the O'Reilly controversy, Russell Simmons memorably defended Ludacris as a hip-hop Austin Powers, and Luda has fun with that image in "Number One Spot," cracking about shagging now or shagging later over a loop of the Austin Powers theme (a.k.a. Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova"). "Large Amounts" riffs on Depeche Mode as well as the musical Oliver! ("You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two" -- brilliant), which Ludacris samples much more fruitfully than Jay-Z did.

You don't cross this man. Ludacris is a playa whose revenge is having more fun than the competition, rather than blowing them away. Even in "Get Back," where he rants about hangers-on trying to talk to him in clubs, he just wants to watch the women get drunk as hell so he can wake up in the morning with a story to tell. For all the high spirits, The Red Light District is his most inventive album yet -- especially "The Potion," a dizzying avant-crunk collaboration with Timbaland. Ludacris puts his dirty mouth where his dirty money is, and after four albums he's still rising.