T.I. Shows Off His Homework

Our look at the closing lines of the biggest new-music reviews continues with a roundup of reactions to Paper Trail, the new album by the house-arrested Atlanta MC T.I.:

• “You get the impression that as much as he says he hates the fame, he’s living a Spike Lee movie. Only instead of growing less angry with the world and more upset with himself the way Norton does, T.I. essentially blames his circumstances, his enemies, and his own paranoia.” [Boston Globe]

• “As if it weren’t already thrilling enough, West’s goose-bump-producing beat features a hook sampled from M.I.A.’s sleeper-hit ‘Paper Planes.’ Hear it once, and you’ll feel a permanent wrinkle puckering in your brain tissue. That’s good news for T.I. No genre moves faster than here-today/gone-tomorrow hip-hop. His jail sentence might feel like an ice age in rap years, but Paper Trail makes an indelible forget-me-not.” [Washington Post]

• “T.I. is still a bit too keen to remake his signature hit ‘What You Know,’ but songs like the clever ‘I’m Illy’ and the Just Blaze-produced stomper ‘Live Your Life’ find T.I. reconciling himself to his lot in life: he’s a well-oiled hit machine who’s more fun than deep.” [RS]

• “Paper Trail does succeed at banking enough strong singles, including ‘Swagga Like Us,’ with Jay-Z and Kanye West, and ‘Swing Ya Rag,’ with Swizz Beatz, to keep T.I. on the charts during his upcoming incarceration. Maybe he can use all that time to decide which side of his personality he plans to cultivate permanently. Going back and forth only hurts both sides.” [Newsday]