CHAMILLIONAIRE "Ultimate Victory" ALBUM REVIEW

 

ALBUM TITLE: Ultimate Victory

LABEL: Interscope

RELEASED: Sept 18th, 2007

TOP TRACKS:  Hip Hop Police, Pimp Mode, The Bill Collector, Industry Groupie

RAPCENTRAL RATING:

  Houston Rapper Chamillionaire is back with his follow up to international success 'The Sound of Revenge'' with Ultimate Victory, which in my opinion is a very worthy follow up. Although the song ''Hip Hop Police'' has not yet (and is not likely to) match the success of the dominant hip-hop single and highest selling rap ringtone ever, the album over all is enjoyable to anybody who remotely appreciates good Hip-Hop. Some of Chamillionaire's mixtape fans will be glad to know he hasn't abandoned his mixtape style at all, and these underground elements mix well with both his lyrical ability and some rather decent beats thrown in on most of the tracks. For those fans who have any of Cham's earlier album you'll appreciate the two skits, which Cham is well known for having in his earlier albums, such as ''Get Ya Mind Correct'' both of which are very entertaining in their own way.

What i particularly like about this album, which you don't see in many South Side albums is both political commentary, and the state of the Hip-Hop game that Chamillionare is obviously a large fan of. It's not often you get an album so well put together that pulls of a clever combination of the truth and true southside style beats and entirely southside collaborations, such as Scarface, Lil Wayne, Bun B and Slim Thug. My only concern with tracks such as ''The Morning News'' and ''The Evening News'' is how easily these tracks are forgotten about. What i mean by this is i have found myself listening to these songs about twice and once you know the lyrics you get very bored of the song, as it becomes very boring and Chamillionaire's sometimes 'lazy' lyrics show up and you find yourself not very entertained to say the least.

As i've mentioned, Chamillionaire hasn't pushed the boat out when it comes to collaborations. Although Slick Rick was a complete suprise to me, he did not appear much only appearing on a short verse which was rather dissapointing dispite being entertaining when you first see the video to ''Hip Hop Police''. Bun B is a decent rapper, but if you like Chamillionaire, and you dont like Bun B then you will find him unwelcome in the smooth, relaxed flow of ''Pimp Mode'' even though in my opinion his verse was better that i expected and didn't offset the song pretty much at all. If you bought the album entirely for Chamillionaire's smooth hooks you WILL be dissapointed at the song ''Rock Star'' (featuring Lil Wayne) who's rather annoying and quite ridiculous verse completely ruined the song that was going rather well, despite the occasional guitar outburst. Krayzie Bone impressed me most when it comes to collaborations, Cham and Krayzie go well together and ''The Bill Collector'' is a good song for you bone fans, even non-bone fans such as myself will like this track.

Overall i did like this album a lot. Quite frankly you will not lose friends if you don't have this album but it's definetly worth the money if you're a Chamillionaire fan. If you aren't a fan of Cham's mixtapes then chances are you will not like this album more than ''Hip Hop Police'' which does get old a little fast. Being a mixtape fan myself i think i prefer some of Cham's earlier songs such as collaborations with Paul Wall, The songs on this album are probobly not much better than most of his not sampled popular mix tape tracks and it's a shame those songs aren't produced on a major album such as this. So... don't expect this album to be a hip hop classic but it still gets album of the year in my opinion, beating both Kanye's and 50's album by a safe amount.

Review By: Shenron  

  
 
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RapCentral Member Comments:
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Eazy-ED - 19/Sep/07: I really liked this album, a real step up from The Sound Of Revenge, although this one also has its lesser tracks. On TSOR, I wasn't really impressed with some of the collabos, which is also the case here. Some of those which made me reach out to the fast-forward button were Pimp Mode ft. Bun B (just didn't feel it al all) and, again, the collabo with Lil' Wayne. On the other hand, another Chamillionaire ft. Krayzie Bone track just is one of the best collabos thinkable IMO. Overall a very enjoyable album for both the occasional hip hop listener and the die-hard hip hop heads. Fave Tracks: The Bill Collecta ft. Krayzie Bone, Hip Hop Police ft. Slick Rick (although Rick's verse was a bit short), Industry Groupie. I rate it at 4 out of 5.

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