Webbie might be a diamond in the rough

Trill Entertainment has Cash Money aspirations.

By Jordan Sargent

Published March 18, 2008

Last month, the rap blogger Andrew Noz wrote a post about how Trill Entertainment, the label home to Webbie and Lil’ Boosie, among others, might be the “last relevant rap label,” the “last in a dying breed of self made Southern rap

empires.”

He’s referring to Trill Ent.’s status as a kid-brother Cash Money or No Limit, a label from the

swamps that’s a group/family as much as a music label in the bureaucratic, compartmental, promotions team

sense, where the artists all show up three or four times on each other’s albums and nearly every single is a triumphal posse

cut.

And though no Trill Ent. artist has released an album as good as, say, Juvenile’s 400 Degreez or a single as good as Master P’s “I’m Bout It, Bout It,” Trill Ent. kingpins Boosie and Webbie have been making waves on the pop charts for a year or two, capped by the cement-footing Savage Life 2’s lead single, the brilliant “Independent,” has in the current top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 (and that’s to say nothing of the anthem of the century “Wipe Me Down,” or the equally brilliant “Give Me

That”).

Albums-wise, they’re doing a whole lot better than you’d expect, both in terms of quality and sales.

Last year’s group red carpet album Trill Entertainment Presents: Survival of the Fittest has moved somewhere around 300,000 units, and Savage Life 2 has already reportedly topped the 400,000

mark.

And though we as a country (or a music press, especially) might be sleeping on Trill Ent., Southern rap dudes will tell you all day that Boosie’s name carries as much weight down in New Orleans or Mississippi as Lil Wayne’s or

Bun B’s.

Webbie, though the more commercially successful of the duo, is the more low-key and inwardly confident one, and Savage Life 2 carries itself like that.

It has that bass-heavy, seat-back feel of old UGK albums, the type of thing that makes you feel like you should be riding down streets going five miles per hour at all

times.

“Independent” belies that actually, as it does nothing, even among the other stomping tracks here, but completely run you the fuck over

on every listen, and that’s even before Boosie kicks the song’s door in with a third verse that could only be rightfully quoted in all caps.

The rest of the album, almost completely helmed by Trill Ent. in-house producer Mouse, mostly rolls out guttural, syrupy funk, all rumbling bass and suffocating

synths.

It’s a sound that’s patently Southern and by no means progressive, but Webbie’s slow drawl is so at home that you could mistake him for a veteran Texas cat if his voice didn’t sound as early-’20s as it

does.

Lyrically, Webbie, as all the great Southern rappers do (though he isn’t one yet), looks inward as much as he boasts, letting paranoia and dread and uncertainty seep into verses about fucking and watches and cars.

It adds dimensions to him, but it also makes it so you can’t help but feel great for the dude even as you check your busted cell phone for the time and wonder when was the last time you actually saw a diamond.

Things get spotty in places, usually on the tinny synth tracks, but the mild slip-ups are by no means bad.

At the very worst, they’re rough gems.

Maybe Webbie is a diamond in the rough then, even though his label has Cash Money

aspirations.

Listening to Savage Life 2, it’s hard not to root for them to get to that level.