Slim Thug
“All I Know” (f/ Propain)
Hogg Life: The Beginning (out 02.03 on Hogg Life)
Slim Thug’s laidback baritone always takes me straight back to college, riding slowly through the potholes of Uptown New Orleans with the windows down and cigarette smoke lingering on my fingers. And though we’re nearly a decade removed from Houston’s short reign as hip-hop’s epicenter, those voices made an indelible, positive imprint on my brain that hasn’t dulled over time. Though his national star has faded, the rapper born Stayve Jerome Thomas has been dutifully cranking out LPs of varying quality since his still excellent, breakthrough debut, Already Platinum (2005). Thugga has always excelled over lush, full instrumentation, and the slinky acoustic guitars, lazy brass, and nasty percussion of “All I Know” form just the kind of canvas he tends to knock out of the park. If the rest of his fifth album bangs this hard, my drives through LA are about to feel a lot more like the Crescent City.
