Rick Ross: Teflon Don (original) (raw)

If you came up as a rap fan in the 1990s, it's hard to come to grips with the fact that the Illmatic/Doggystyle/Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) ideal has become outmoded. Rappers rarely start with a fully-formed classic right off the bat. And sometimes, a guy who was underrated, underappreciated, or even considered a joke earlier in their career actually generates so much momentum that they eventually become undeniable.

Still, even the most patient and forgiving listener would've had trouble imagining that Rick Ross would ever be taken seriously. His first two Def Jam albums sold well, but his bumbling performances on the mic did little to combat the view of him as merely Jay-Z's get-rich-quick scheme, someone to piggyback on the commercial momentum of dudes from the South rapping about hustling. And when 50 Cent "outed" him as a former corrections officer, it could've been a career-killing PR disaster. But instead of filling his 2009 album Deeper Than Rap with a compendium of explanations and mea culpas, Ross did the exact opposite, exaggerating the most outrageous and ostentatious aspects of his music and persona to summer-blockbuster proportions. He threw the burden of believability out so fast that you could just sit back and cheer as shit blew up.

Ross knows his lane and stays in it on Teflon Don. If this album initially lacks the wallop of Deeper Than Rap, it's only because there's no longer the shock value in realizing that Rick Ross is making one of the better rap records of the year. But Teflon Don also lacks the concessions to sensitive thuggery that bogged down Deeper, and it's also remarkably lean at just 11 tracks. Ross defiantly announces on opener "I'm Not A Star", "If I die today remember me like John Lennon/ Buried in Louis I'm talkin' all brown linen/ Make all of my bitches tattoo my logo on they titty/ Put a statue of a nigga in the middle of the city," and things really don't get any more modest from there.

Ross' greatest gift is the ability to conjure a fully-formed Planet Boss, a refuge from the dwindling fortunes of gansta rap and the general economic downturn, where rappers can and do film videos with as many speedboats as possible. It's obviously a place where A-list rappers are in their comfort zone to do whatever the hell they want. Here, Jay-Z can refute possible ties to the Illuminati, Kanye is at his most aw-shucks disarming since 2007, and the third iteration of "Maybach Music" features none other than Erykah Badu on the hook. The only times Teflon stumbles is when interlopers can't figure the lay of the land. Diddy would've catered more to the spirit of this record if he went in character as Sergio Roma instead of hyping up the overamped, ill-fitting rock moves of "No. 1", and while Drake proved every bit as capable of having rappers meet him on his own terms, his redux of "The Resistance" on "Aston Martin Music" is the awkward sound of two worlds colliding.