Slim Thug

Free of his commitments with Interscope Records, rapper Slim Thug turned his attention back to his South Texas crew, Boss Hogg Outlawz for the follow up to last year's Serve & Collect. This year's sequel, Back By Blockular Demand, sees Slim backing away from the limelight a bit and directing the focus towards his protégés; especially Killa Kyleon who appears on 10 of the album's 16 tracks.

The idea of Slim using his star power to boost the careers of his Houston-based crew in Boss Hogg Outlawz sounds like one that should produce more than a few moments of stellar freestyling and flow; and for the most part, it works. However, the collective effort of the Outlawz on opening track, "No Ceilin'" comes across as little more than a bunch of guys bragging back and forth over the backdrop of a repetitive beat and sample. "Lookin' Clean" and "Like Me" are a couple of other tracks where creativity seems to have fallen to the wayside. Things start to pick up on the soulful Slim Thug/Killer Kyleon/Chris Ward joint "Livin' Without," and the entire group gives listener's their money's worth on "Serve And Collect" and "Fuck You Mayn."

The disc's biggest downfall is the intermittent lack of variety and originality. Some of the tracks tend to wear themselves pretty thin by recycling the same beat and sample over and over again, with little change or diversity. Even when the rappers trade rhymes and feed off one another's flow, the vibe can grow stagnant due to repetitiveness. However, when redundancy isn't the prevailing factor, Boss Hogg's shit simply slams. Slim Thug fans looking for a substitute for his solo jams might find Back By Blockular Demand to come up a bit short, but as a whole, this disc hits more than it misses.

–Ryan Ogle
09.25.08