What Went Wrong: "T.I. vs. T.I.P."

I'm fallin' off like this hat!

I'm an admitted sucker for the concept album, especially when the genre is rap. I probably give "A Grand Don't Come For Free" too many free passes, for example, because the lousy songs can be justified by fitting into the overall story arc Mike Skinner is trying to create. So when I heard that T.I., self-proclaimed King of the South, critically acclaimed hitmaker, and Mannie Fresh BFF, was making an album called "T.I. vs. T.I.P.", and dividing it into three "acts", I got really, really excited. This was an example of an all-star MC, who scored a touchdown with "King" last year, getting a chance to add new depth, gain new respect, and give us something... new. C'mon, when has ANY commercial rapper released an album this bracingly ambitious? I heard the first single "Big Shit Poppin'", and despite the general consensus of "meh", I thought it was pretty great, with Tip displaying the right mix of arrogance and effortless cool. The stage was set.

"T.I. vs. T.I.P." is a dud. It's not going to cost T.I. any fraction of his fanbase, and it doesn't make me lose any respect for him or his skills on the mic. The concept -- his street side (T.I.P.) and his polished superstar side (T.I.) battle for supreme dominance -- really is an interesting one; it reimagines the generic "where you are vs. where you been" hip-hop struggle as a literal fight, and gets across how conflicted T.I. feels with his new stardom (reports have been heard that he wants to leave the rap game altogether). The problem is that it's just executed so poorly. I would have no problem if T.I. wanted to fuck with his sequencing so much that the T.I.P. act gets all the club-bangers and the T.I. act gets all the slow jams, but most of the songs could belong in either part of the album, which in turn makes the personae seem nondescript and the concept pointless. Even when Act III, "T.I. vs. T.I.P. The Confrontation", rolls around, and the two halves of the rapper trade verses, the voices are spitting such similar sentiments that the listener becomes confused and then apathetic to whatever's going on.

The real problem to "T.I. vs. T.I.P.", however, is much more simple than what many critics have made it out to be: the songs just kind of blow. No, they're not awful in that "goddammit this sounds like torture, turn it off!" way. It's just that each song rolls off of you unnoticed, so middle-of-the-road mediocre that you get mad that it didn't have any effect on you whatsoever. Despite the occasional all-out stinker ("Da Dopeman" is T.I.'s worst song, period), T.I.'s still too good a rapper to allow a song to become laughably bad. The stuff here is so bland though, from the Southern-fried Jay-Z collabo "Watch What You Say To Me" (props to Hov for finally writing a good verse after four years) to hip-hop assessment "Help Is Coming" that you'll never ask for a second repeat. Let's face it, "King" was so unstoppable because it was frontloaded with great beats and big hooks. "T.I. vs. T.I.P."'s undoing rests in the fact that most songs sound half-complete and entirely forgettable.

If you're a T.I. fan reaching for the panic button, calm down. T.I. is still one of the five most exciting rappers alive, and this is just his "Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse". It'll be interesting to see where "T.I. vs. T.I.P." leads Tip to. If I were to guess, I'd say he'll ditch the high-concept artistry next time around and churn out some more simple club anthems. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.