T.I.: Urban Legend [Chopped & Screwed] : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Atlanta rapper T.I. is the latest Southern hip-hop artist to get the "chopped and screwed" treatment. (Lil Wayne is another.) It means that superstar DJ Paul Wall takes the original tracks, slows them way down, chops them up into new creations and comes out with perfect party music for Houston thugs bouncing off the walls from too much cough syrup. Since T.I.'s raps are more noteworthy than his beats in the first place, his late-2004 hit Urban Legend is supremely screwable. Wall, of the Swisha House crew, is the real star of the album, turning T.I. songs such as "Bring 'Em Out," "Asap" and "The King" into woozy post-dub trips more fun than the originals. It's funk NyQuil: slowed, throwed and fit to explode.