Hip-Hop Island

Chamillionaire's going all political on his new album, Ultimate Victory (Universal Motown), and this time he doesn't care if he impresses anyone with slick punch lines and metaphors. Instead, Cham packs this album with intelligence and a sick flow. Coming off his Grammy-winning single "Ridin'," Cham shows no signs of fall off on his delayed re-up and has no problems relaying his anger about the state of Hip-Hop. "Hip-Hop, crunk music, hyphy music, snap music/Sounds like a nursery rhyme, get a beat and rap to it/Ain't speaking with a purpose, I'ma call it crap music," Cham fires on the opening track, "The Morning News."

That said, the Houston product lashes out against the recording industry and the fake friends and women that come along with being an entertainer. On "Industry Groupie," Cham throws dirt at gold diggers who are always looking for an easy way in and up the chain of rich ballers. "Now your business all over the radio and it's the penalty that you have to pay/You made the choice to go and be a freak, even Akon been smacking that/Her plan was to get ran through by a linebacker or a quarterback."

"More money, more problems" seems to be Cham's sentiment throughout his sophomore effort. From living the flashy, luxurious life on "The Ultimate Vacation," to so-called friends trying to sabotage his career on "I Think I Love You"—both produced by the Beat Bullies— Chamillionaire's got a beef with everyone who gets in his way to the top. "Having money is like a relationship/Everybody's always gonna get in your business/Trying to break it up, trying to get involved in it/But they really need to mind their own business/Money don't do nothing but bring you trouble."

And for all those fake rappers who are spitting out "crap music," Chamillionaire's got words for them, too. Cham calls out all those wannabe hustlers and gangstas who claim to have street cred on the synth soaked "Come Back To The Streets." Taking a citizen journalist perspective, the Mixtape Messiah sheds light on currents events always blaming Hip-Hop culture as the problem over producer Kane’s tense strings on "The Evening News." "Don Imus made comments that made everybody forget about him/That's him, Anna Nicole got pregnant and had kids by him/Rest in peace to Virginia Tech, too many innocent kids dyin'/Well let's just blame Hip-Hop and act like that's the big problem."

Chamillionaire's flow and lyricism is rampant through each track on Ultimate Victory while the production work itself—which included the likes of JR Rotem, Happy Perez and Play-N-Skillz—gives this record value. Add in Cham's quick rap skills and personally reflective lyrics, as well as selective features from folk like Pimp C (“Welcome To The South”), Bun B (“Pimp Mode”) and Lil Wayne (“Rock Star”) and this sophomore bump has hit written all over it. After all, to the victor belongs the spoils.

Originally published @ http://allhiphop.com/blogs/reviews/archive/2007/09/17/18600622.aspx#comments