This week, Billboard is publishing a collection of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years in the past. Our 2003 Week continues right here with a rewind to the discharge of T.I.’s breakthrough album Entice Muzik — a traditional set that helped coin a style title and has aged fantastically in its portrayal of life within the South, though much less gracefully in sure different methods.
Individuals nonetheless don’t actually know what lure music is. Not less than 20 years into its historical past, loads of listeners merely affiliate it as a sound that may be adopted and discarded by white pop and nation stars for aesthetic functions. However to chalk it as much as some darkish 808s and some stylistic decisions utterly erases very important historical past of Southern rap music and mutes the lives of Black southerners who trapped as a way of survival.
It could possibly be debated whether or not the true genesis of lure music stemmed from acts like UGK on the weary, scorching, “Pocket Stuffed with Stones” in 1992 or 8Ball & MJG’s thick, funky “9 Little Millimeta Boys” in ’93. Some additionally argue that actual lure music from Atlanta steers nearer to the mid-to-late ‘00s Gucci Mane tapes or Jeezy information. However T.I. famously coined the time period in 2003 along with his breakthrough album Entice Muzik and gave a lot wanted dimension to Black southerners attempting to flee poverty within the course of.
Born Clifford Harris in Bankhead, Atlanta, Georgia, T.I. began rapping as a child and making mixtapes along with his good friend Large Kuntry King — recognized greatest for his collaborations below T.I.’s group P$C. By 1999, T.I. would signal to LaFace Data and drop his debut album I’m Critical in 2001. It’s a nice report, but it surely’s smudged by the label’s heavy fingerprints: Whereas T.I.’s uncooked rapping bursts with character, the Neptunes beats and borderline Money Cash/No Restrict cosplay supply an underwhelming pattern platter rather than a real highlight. Songs like “Dope Boyz” do spotlight T.I.’s vivid and distinct writing about drug dealing and Atlanta landmarks and lay the groundwork for what Entice Muzik would turn into. However I’m Critical flopped, the self-titled lead single didn’t chart and the label would drop T.I. shortly after.
Atlanta nonetheless confirmed like to T.I., as a result of he helped showcase one other facet of the town that Outkast and the remainder of the Dungeon Household hadn’t. The place information like Stankonia confirmed the funky soul and crunk artists like Lil Jon confirmed the rambunctious, abrasive power, there was T.I. in a dishevelled t-shirt and an enormous fitted hat, talking intimately to his neighborhood and people prefer it. T.I. would take that native help and hit the mixtape market, quickly forming his personal indie Grand Hustle and taking the label to signal with Atlantic. By 2003, his look on Bone Crusher’s mammoth headbanger “By no means Scared” would cement T.I.’s stardom and would set the desk for the takeover of Entice Muzik.
The thesis assertion for Entice Muzik lies on the humid, soulful “Doin My Job.” Over a triumphant Kanye West beat, he explains drug dealing as simply one other job, no completely different than being a tradesman or flipping burgers. T.I. urges those that disparage him to think about them as individuals attempting to outlive when different avenues received’t open up. The rhetorical query on the finish of the primary verse sizzles in contempt for individuals who speak down on him, “Oh, you suppose we out right here killin’ for nothin’ hustling for no achieve?” T.I. frames the report like a debate, throwing rebuttals for each assumption made about him and individuals who dwell within the streets.
The third verse offers probably the most readability, that regardless that that is what he has to do, this isn’t one thing he desires to do. He insists, “We will’t assist it ‘trigger it’s like this, we don’t prefer it not more than you that we dwell like this.” When payments needed to be paid, meals wanted to be placed on the desk, there was T.I. attempting to assist ends meet for his household: “Since 13, I been hustling and incomes my hold.” He offered a significant service in offering empathy for road life when in any other case demonized by the media within the aftermath of a post-Reaganomics America.
However that doesn’t imply Entice Muzik was meant to glamorize the streets. In the direction of the top of the album, there’s “Be Higher Than Me,” a timeless bit of recommendation within the title of self preservation. “Shawty, them streets ain’t the place to be, I’m telling you ‘cuz it’s too late for me… Crackers love nun’ higher to see than a younger n— with a felony sheet, so be higher than me.” T.I. was solely rapping about his on a regular basis life, that if rapping didn’t repay, he’d be again on the nook, attempting to outlive one other day.
Whereas Entice Muzik performs a significant position in telling the tales of road life in Bankhead, Atlanta, it’s additionally simply an unimpeachable rap album. T.I’s third single off the album, “Rubber Band Man,” is likely one of the most invigorating rap hits of all time and marked his first crossover hit, reaching No. 30 on the Billboard Sizzling 100. David Banner’s manufacturing here’s a non secular expertise; the organs, the refrain of children on the hook, T.I.’s stellar trash-talking, “Younger Cassius Clay of my day, Marvin Gaye of my time/ Tryna keep alive, residing how I say in my rhymes.” It’s one of many South’s many nice country-fried rap psalms.
In the meantime, “24’s” is a deeply cathartic report. As lead single for the album, it led with the southern distinctions however was muscular sufficient in its anthemic hook to punch by nationwide rap charts. It was additionally defiant in the direction of coastal supremacy in hip-hop nonetheless prevalent on the time; traditionalists turned their nostril up at southern music and coded their biases in realness. When individuals would view Southern hip-hop and anyone who lives there as dumb and ignorant, “24’s” embraces the surplus as one thing to rejoice. T.I. chants all of the issues his associates love, “cash, hoes, vehicles, and garments… blowing dro on 24s.” It’s staggeringly easy — nearly abrasive in how easy it’s — but it surely’s the truest factor he might say. It’s a self assured report, not only for T.I. and his crew however inclusive in its aspirations for the finer issues in life.
T.I.’s takes on romance and his sly participant bravado was maybe his best power. The music business on the time completely cherished hip-hop and R&B crossover information, to current a softer facet to rappers and to maximise the feminine viewers who may develop weary of the music’s overbearing machismo and aggressive tones. However there weren’t loads of nationwide heartthrobs in southern rap: Crunk was sweaty and intense, it wasn’t the primary focus for Outkast, and New Orleans was busy customizing Chevy Suburbans and PT Cruisers. However then there was T.I. and his nation drawl, kicking sport in a wifebeater to any lady in a bikini keen to pay attention. “Let’s Get Away” was one of many album’s largest crossover hits, a suave pool occasion report that spotlighted T.I.’s reward at connecting with the women. T.I.’s second verse on “Let Me Inform You One thing” is deeply candy and affectionate, wanting to offer this lady the world over Kanye’s “I Wish to Be Your Man” flip. He raps at an intimate whisper, “However anyway, once I see your face, I’m pondering three or 4 days in Montego Bay… I wanna be the explanation why you exhibiting ya tooth, and not using a fear on the planet once you rollin’ with me.”
At occasions, nevertheless, the T.I. persona from ‘03 can conflict with the person we all know in the present day. T.I. and his spouse Tiny have been investigated by the LAPD over a slew of sexual assault and drugging allegations from 11 individuals in 2021. Though the couple denied the allegations and the fees have been dropped as a result of 10-year statute of limitations, it’s arduous to not hear some skeeviness and intensely pushy advances when listening to Entice Muzik in 2003. On “Let’s Get Away,” he asks, “What’s a p—y pumper?” and rapidly retorts “Need a demonstration? However I ain’t waitin’ til the second date, I’m so impatient.” Within the second verse, he smirks in regards to the ecstasy kicking in and the way she’s begging him to stay it in, sparking uneasy questions all through his textbook smooth-talking. Even when strains play barely extra harmless, like on “Let Me Inform You One thing” (“So what if I acquired a go, was labeled a dirtbag/ By the numerous hearts I damaged and ladies I harm unhealthy?”), it might nonetheless be misinterpret by these rightfully skeptical of “good intentions.” In bigger service to the album, these information are nonetheless very important for understanding T.I. in 2003 and belie any singular portrait of him as only a road rapper.
Within the years that adopted, T.I. would develop right into a full-blown celebrity, his grand visions of being the “Jay-Z of the South” absolutely realized on 2004’s City Legend and 2006’s huge crowning second King. Slowly however absolutely, T.I. would pivot away from his Southern rap distinctions, forsaking regional taste for world-conquering hits – if it wasn’t for the unmistakable twang in his voice, the man with inescapable chart-toppers like “No matter You Like” could be simply one other pop rapper. That’s what makes Entice Muzik such a particular report in T.I.’s discography and ‘00s hip-hop, a seamless balancing act of Southern aptitude, unstoppable rapping, and bulletproof hitmaking. It sounds just like the South, thick, muggy air, warmth scorching off the asphalt, subwoofers thumping out of numerous Chevys and Cadillacs. On “King of da South,” he boasts, “I set the town on fireplace and also you seen that s–t.” 20 years later, the flame nonetheless burns brilliant.
