It's the BOWSSSSS!BOSS! ROZAY! I think I’m BIG MEECH! I listen to a lot of rap for a lot of reasons. Sometimes, such as when I’m listening to Nas, Common or the Tribe, I try to pay attention to the nuances of the beat and the rhythm and lyricism of the verses. Sometimes, however, I just wanna listen to a fat man shout inane catchphrases over the least subtle beat possible. Such is my feeling when I listen to “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast),” the lead single from Teflon Don, Rick Ross’s fourth album. Ross makes music that appeals directly to the pleasure center of the brain – the area that has always dreamed of popping champagne on a luxury yacht.
Until recently, Rick Ross was a clown, the biggest joke in rap music. Ross is a (give or take) 300-pound man with a full beard who frequently appears shirtless in music videos. Though he has a booming voice, his flow was often stilted and halting and he could never seem to find a rhyming dictionary. Except when he rhymed his own name with the word Boss. He was very good at that and did that at least thirty times a song. Then there was that one verse in “Hustlin’” where he kept rhyming “twenty-twos” with “twenty-twos.” Adding insult, Ross, who consistently exaggerated about being a drug kingpin in his “rhymes,” was exposed as a former corrections officer, which is commonly known as the least hood profession (behind chartered accountant and insurance claims adjuster). It seemed like strong support from Def Jam and a friendship with Jay-Z were the only things keeping Ross from falling off the face of the Earth.
However, with the release of 2009’s Deeper Than Rap, and particularly the single “Maybach Music 2,” a strange thing happened: people began to take Rick Ross seriously. Ross embraced all the criticism levied against him for his previous releases and emphasized the most outrageous, oversized aspects of his music. Instead of rapping about selling drugs and being a kingpin, Ross focuses more on the spoils of his successes: money, cars, clothes and hos. In the late 70s, some (mostly crappy) rock bands released a brand of highly polished soft rock, called Yacht Rock, created to be the type of smooth music that a yacht owner would listen to on his boat. Ross, in 2010, has embodied a similar type of music, which I like to call yacht rap--music to be enjoyed while sipping Cristal on a speedboat, and possibly with strippers and high class prostitutes. Teflon Don is the epitome of his new yacht rap aesthetic.
On Teflon Don, Ross works with producers who can create a larger-than-life, cinematic synth sound and let Ross fill the spaces with his booming voice. The two (nearly identical) Lex Luger tracks, "MC Hammer" and "BMF," are symphonies of bombast and are full of quotable lines and catchphrases. The Boss of Teflon Don is much improved as a rapper . He has improved his delivery considerably and his lyricism isn't nearly as headache inducing as it used to be (or, more likely, he hired a couple good ghostwriters). Ross adopted Maybach Music as a motto, as Ross's music represents a life of unattainable luxury, which Ross enjoys. However, the difference between Teflon Don-Ross and the old Ross is evident on "Maybach Music III," in which he trades in the second version's T-Pain for critical darling Erykah Badu--classy, no? The A-List guest list (Jay-Z, T.I., Kanye, Gucci Mane, Drake) that Ross brings onto Teflon Don, furthers the conception that he's living a life that none of us can possibly lead, and though he's routinely murdered by these guests (especially by Kanye on "Live Fast, Die Young"), he seems less of a punching bag than a gracious host, allowing his friends to step into his mansion and kill a verse.
Ultimately, listening to Teflon Don is like watching a good episode of Entourage (read: one released before 2007). It gives the listener a taste of an unattainable, perfect life and lifestyle, without being the least bit pretentious or condescending. Teflon Don is breezy and very replayable, and while Ross may be full of shit, it doesn't matter if you buy the act and enjoy the fantastic production. While you may never think of Rick Ross as Big Meech or Larry Hoover, you can at least count on him as a reliable source of some truly enjoyable rap music.
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