His ill-fated foray into politics didn't land him on Obama's enemies list, so Ludacris can go back to doing what he usually does every other year-- releasing a commercially successful and artistically iffy album. These records can be counted on for a handful of dozens-packing laugh riots, a handful of moderately inspired club tracks, a handful of handouts to less talented associates, and at least one song everyone can agree is just god-awful. This sort of consistent inconsistency has been good to Chris Bridges ("I was set for life after three LPs"), but he's called Theater of the Mind his "classic" album, which would probably raise a few more eyebrows had he not said the same exact thing about 2006's Release Therapy.
But while Release Therapy sought to prove (in a relative sense) that Ludacris had important opinions about things other than pussy poppin' on the handstand, Theater is every bit as serious-minded in a different fashion. Forget gunning for the #1 spot over Austin Powers instrumentals, Ludacris is gunning for those nebulous "top five, dead or alive" props. It's not all that far-fetched considering the "lyricist" moments of The Preview, last year's mixtape with DJ Drama and the one boast he used twice by his second album-- "My rap career goes back further than your father's hairline." But the main problem stems from a boast on the intro-- "Give me 16 bars on another nigga's song and I'MMA FUCKIN' KILL IT." True enough, but give him 50 minutes of passable beats on his own album, and he might kill it, like, 45-55% of the time.
As to be expected from someone who spends a lot of time with questionable screenplays, Theater of the Mind somewhat unintentionally breaks up into three distinct acts. But it flows less in a "cinematic" manner and more like Nick at Nite of the Mind-- going from slapstick single-cam, drippy rom-com, and the self-serious drama to close things out. Obviously, it leads to a constantly jarring listen, though the first third does provide its share of high points. "Undisputed" takes the concept of Ghostface's "The Champ" full stop, and perhaps in a show of Def Jam's priorities, he gets Floyd Mayweather as his trainer rather than a non-licensed Rocky rip. We'd need a bunch of footnotes to keep track of the quotables ("Your style isn't favored/ And DJ's NEVER bring it back/ Like when you borrow from your neighbor!" or "If you're sittin' on chrome/ I'll call my boys and you'll get stripped of your medals like Marion Jones!"). And while "Wish You Would" doesn't match the triumph of Paper Trail's hatchet-burying "On Top of the World", it's still potent shit talk.
But where the first act shows, the final tells, as Luda goes through a pro forma checklist of Things Real MC's Do-- collaborating with Lil Wayne, "The first southern rapper on a Primo beat," the Nas/Jay-Z number, and the "conscious" closer that features "Spizzike" Lee and Common (wait, what?). Each is pretty enjoyable if you can ignore the gaping leaps of logic. Ludacris claims "I Do It for Hip Hop" (not the fancy chains, etc.), about 20 minutes after boasting "I'm about my money if it kills me" and spends an entire verse advocating riding dirty because it makes his car resemble uniforms of shitty NBA franchises. He claims that, as a lyricist, he's the "Last of a Dying Breed" about 20 minutes after T-Pain shows up to advocate fucking fat chicks ("One More Drink"). And at long last, he pleads with the young black youth to git up, git out, and get something 20 minutes after making a track called "Southern Gangsta" where Rick Ross murders him on his own ignorant shit by misquoting "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" and boasting about his "Jewish friends" and the "newest Benz."
While Theater isn't quite as dire as the above may indicate, like every other Ludacris record, it doesn't grow on you-- in fact, it actually contracts. In the middle, most tracks are rendered with a Friends-like one dimensionality ("the one about...") that makes it perfectly clear from the first minute whether you'll ever want to listen to it again. The only multi-faceted concept is "Call Up the Homies", which is both a cross-country playdate where the Game and Ludacris meet up to shoot people while showing absolutely zero chemistry as well as a showcase for Phoenix's thoroughly uninspiring Willy Northpole. "What Them Girls Like" goes one title, and apparently it's chirpy rap and bullshit with Chris Brown and text messages from Plies. "Nasty Girl" is something of a "Girls, Girls, Girls" framework around his "lady in the street/ But a freak in the bed" line from "Yeah!", and a woefully undeveloped one at that. Like a Jewish mother, Ludacris can't think of any respectable professions besides doctors and lawyers. And these are his ideas of potential hits, bringing up an even more serious worry than him never completing a true "classic": he might not even be capable of a "Get Back" or "Act a Fool" anymore either.
