Last summer when I first heard a ‘leaked’ song from Ludacris featuring Shawnna I was ecstatic to see she was back on the scene. She is not my all time fave femcee but I love her flow nonetheless. Of course me being the snoop that I am I did some digging and found out they were working on a collaboration album entitled “Battle of the Sexes”. I was stoked because I have been waiting for someone to bring this concept to fruition for years.
I am not one to gossip but I do read some of the blogs occasionally and started seeing stories surfacing claiming Shawnna was kicked off the album, she left DTP to sign with T-Pain; etc. I was admittedly disappointed until word spread that he was continuing with the vision with a variety of femcees instead. I could not have been more hyped.
Well kiddies, I am saddened to report that the air has been taken out of my balloon. In the spirit of positivity let’s talk about what’s hot.
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What’s Hot:
The Intro-I felt this was a proper opening to what I was expecting the album to be – My only complaint was that it wasn’t a full length song.
Sexting– Is 100% about Tiger Woods having the bright idea to leave a voicemail asking a jump off to remove her name off of her phone and subsequent stint in rehab. Nothing short of hilarious and done in true Luda style.
Rollercoaster-featuring Dru Hill and Shawnna: Not to sound mean but when I read the track listing I had no intention on listening to this song. I believe it’s only found on the Deluxe Edition of the album. I said ok so Luda threw a reject song on the album-WRONG. This song epitomizes EXACTLY what I wanted this album to be. Not in the sense of it being overly sexual just the back and forth banter is what I expected from the entire album. This is hands down my favorite song on this album.
Of course the heavily radio rotated singlesHow Low/How Low (Remix) and My Chick Bad feat Nicki Minaj are definitely party starters. After listening to the How Low remix featuring Ciara and Pitbull I can’t help but wonder why Ciara wasn’t on the song to begin with? – It fits the theme.
Two songs worth mentioning off of this album are Sex Room featuring Trey Songz and Can’t Live With You featuring Monica both titles are basically self explanatory.
Not Hot:
My Chick Bad (Remix) feat Diamond, Trina and Eve-Luda calls this the P**y Rules the World version. Trina is Trina all day no complaints there. Eve definitely reminds us why she is a pitbull in a skirt but….Diamond *scratches head* she ruined the whole song for me. Truth be told he could have copied and pasted Nicki’s part over Diamonds and kept everyone else and bypassed doing a remix period.
Hey Ho feat Lil Kim and Lil Fate-I liked the song until Lil Fate started rapping. I would have loved for Luda and Kim to continue to kill the song. Truth be told I think Lil Kim should have been the feature on My Chick Bad Brooklyn Kim or even Foxy would have took this song somewhere else for me. (Not that Nicki didn’t do her thing)
I had to listen to this album 3 times to be honest to be able to assess it right. I didn’t want my own personal disappointment cause me to be harsher than necessary. I love Luda and think he is easiest one of the illest to ever do it. He should get much more credit than he does for his skills. I respect him continuing his vision despite whatever happened to really cause Shawna to be almost eliminated from the album completely. Shawnna is the perfect yin to Ludacris’s yang musically and the original concept would have been epic I am sure.
I remain a Luda fan regardless and know his true fans will still cop this album however I think someone should have strongly suggested he change the album title.