Bun B is a powerful rapper even when he isn't saying anything. His voice has a hypnotically fluid precision and a weary authority, and Bun delivers his rhymes with enough inventive eloquence to even make street-rap clichs sound fresh. His latest album, Trill, is full of solid, workmanlike beats from guys like Mr. Lee and Mannie Fresh, and only occasionally succumbs to mainstream rap's fetish for pillowy r&b; sonics. Bun is comfortable working a lot of different styles, from the pitbull threats of "I'm a G" to the catchy plastic fake-Miami bounce of "Git It". As a slapdash multiple-producer singles-and-filler album from a B-list rapper, Trill succeeds; there are certainly many, many worse ways to spend your rap money.
But here's the thing: It's not enough for Trill to be a competent mainstream-rap album. It's the first solo album from Bun, and it comes at the first bright moment of an epically long career. Bun is half of the Texas duo UGK, a group contracted early in its career with Jive, a label that had no idea how to market it, and still hasn't managed to extricate itself. And so the group's albums never sold what they should've. But UGK's underground fanbase was strong enough to drive its 1996 release Ridin' Dirty past gold, and Bun and his partner Pimp C made what should've been a career-making guest appearance on Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'" in 1999. Unfortunately, the duo's follow-up album took too long to come out, and it never managed to capitalize on either of the duo's career landmarks. In 2001, Pimp C went to prison for violating his probation, and the group looked dead. But Bun responded by going on a tear, making ridiculously cold guest appearances on virtually every Southern rap album to come out in the last two years, and he managed to build his name up more than he ever had in UGK, especially after Houston rap blew up huge earlier this year. This should be Bun's moment, the light at the end of the tunnel, the time when he steps up and delivers the genre-defining classic he's always promised. Instead, he's made a pretty good rap album.
Trill is not a well-sequenced album; every transcendent moment is immediately followed by an embarrassing travesty. "Pushin", a gorgeously sad drug-talk reminisce with Scarface and Young Jeezy, comes immediately before the irredeemably cheesy squeaky-synth Jazze Pha collaboration "I'm Ballin'". The triumphant all-Houston posse cut "Draped Up (H-Town Mix)", which includes the ecstatic surprise of Chamillionaire and Paul Wall appearing right next to each other, is followed by "Late Night Creepin'", and inexplicable collaboration with the guy from the Transplants who isn't Tim Armstrong. But the most egregious misstep comes right after "The Story", Bun's crushingly honest and endlessly fascinating retelling of the entire UGK story. On that track, he raps for six minutes straight with no hook, uncovering every inside detail of his tremendous career. It's one of the best things Bun has ever done, but then its momentum is halted by the following track, the tedious and awkward r&b; love-rap "Hold U Down".
And so the album goes, derailing its great moments with sad missteps. Bun wastes guest appearances from Jay-Z and Young Jeezy on the ungainly, uninspired track "Get Throwed", and on "Who Need a B" he gives us the spectacle of a middle-aged married man talking explicitly about pimping. And so Trill, for all its strengths, is a missed opportunity. Bun probably still has another classic on the level of Ridin' Dirty in him; we might find out a couple of months when Pimp C goes up for parole and maybe returns to crafting the woozy soul tracks that Bun loves.
