Well, wouldn’t you look who’s creeping and crawling, still balling in the mix. With a title like Houston, it should be a telltale sign what awaits the ear upon pushing play, and The Thugga does not disappoint with enough chopped & screwed, speak-her sex moments to help restart the H-Town revival in Twenty Twelve. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit, at first I was turned off by this one.

“Soldier” has been done so many times — and really well too — so when I saw Screwed Up Click member E.S.G. was doing a version with Chamillionaire wailing out the hook for the first single of his new self-titled Everyday Street Gangsta album from Koch, well, the word skeptical came to mind. But, like most things in life, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and downloaded anyways.

Surprisingly, on this occasion, my good grace actually panned out. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s rare that a first track perfectly encapsulates an album, but in the case of E.S.G’s Digital Dope: The Reintroduction, that’s the case. Unfortunately for Hip-Hop fans, “Ballin’ Just a Hobby,” epitomizes the limited heights this album will reach. Over a beat solidly stuck in late-90s No Limit mode, E.S.G. tosses out stale rhymes about money, hustlin’, and weed.

As a veteran to the Houston rap game, E.S.G. seems unsure of how to modernize his sound for changes in style. He can’t come up with any fresh ideas other than taking his own wild adventure into the land of Auto-Tune on “One Hundred.” So for most of Digital Dope, he stays in his comfort zone, content to make assembly line southern rap. Tracks like “Makin’ Money,” “Fake and Real,” and “Wutchu On,” reorder the same basic beat elements and lyrical themes in a way that undermines E.S.G’s efforts to earn credibility as an overlooked innovator. Read the rest of this entry »