God bless the trap. The same intricate hustle that taints the souls of the inner city inhabitants became a bargaining chip for some of the more successful rappers over the past decade. With the blueprint embedded in his New Orleans stage act, Kidd Kidd looks to be the next contestant to gain riches after coming from rags. Formerly known as Nutt da Kidd while serving as an early soldier in Lil Wayne’s eventual Young Money imprint, his tolerable debut album, The Reallionaire makes good on establishing a presence for the upstart rapper but not much else.

In a move unlike most industry practices of the day, The Reallionaire is boldly devoid of any guest appearances. While such action goes the distance of exposing what little variance Kidd Kidd has to offer, it does give him the floor to tell his complete story without interruption. The best testimony comes in the form of “Neva Stop,” which fully captures the sonic euphoria of The Big Easy as somber trumpets and a bluesy melody compliments Kidd’s slick wordplay to near perfection. The sedative “Voices” is the rapper’s best shot at introspection, as the dead and living both whisper various nothings in both of his eardrums. As expected, money talk isn’t far behind and while lead single “Big Bankroll” is a serviceable transaction, it probably could have been omitted for the more catchy, similar-themed “Keep On Spending.”

Midway through the 5th and 7th Wards, Kidd Kidd runs out of things to talk about and drags the project’s stock down with him. Self-explanatory material such as “Back On My Bullshit” and “Money, Guns And Weed” wallow in tedium with the latter even lazily sampling Willy Wonka’s soundtrack for a further puzzling effect. And even though Da Kidd took himself out the running for a Pulitzer the moment he opened his mouth, his lyrical IQ won’t rattle the competition anytime soon. The bouncy “N.O. Swag” racks up the most face-palm moments as the little rascal dishonors his city with lines like, “My neck is kinda blingish/yeah, I do my thingish/when it come to police, I don’t speak no English/Mmmm Mmmmm Mmmm….yeah I keep my mouth closed…” Remember kids, reading is still fundamental.

Kidd² makes a commendable effort of sticking to his guns–figuratively and literally–to create a disc that represents his ideas and beliefs 100%. Sadly, The Reallionaire could have benefited from a bit of embellishment.