Lil' O

The only surefire way to enjoy Lil' O's Da Fat Rat Wit Da Cheeze is to not take a single ounce of it seriously.

Lil' O is Da Fat Rat Wit Da Cheeze.

Details

Saturday, December 22; 713-733-6019

Trading Fair II Arena, 5515 South Loop West

Related Content

• Tow Down: Busted Rapper/Grower's Lyrical Tipoffs
  May 26, 2011
• Goodtime Moonshine: 8 Brands Of Musician-Backed Booze
  October 21, 2011
• The 10 Most Horrible Music-Biz Bosses
  July 8, 2011
• 10 Rappers As Movie Villains
  October 31, 2011
• Diddy Cancels May 12 Warehouse Live Date
  April 15, 2011

More About

• Screwed Up Click
• Sean Combs
• Big Pokey
• Hip-Hop and Rap

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

For his first album on a major, nationwide label (there was a botched 1997 deal with MCA), Lil' O attempts to be all things to all rap fans -- an equal-opportunity studio gangsta. Fat Rat is shot through with contradictions, mostly supplied by the performer himself. Is he the thug all thugs straight-up envy? A ruthless, bloodthirsty son of a bitch who doesn't have the time or patience to deal with pesky playa-haters or complaining hoochies? ("Y'all broads wanna drink / The bathroom's got a sink," he says on "The Throwdest.") Or is he just a brotha trying to find that silver lining on the hood's dark storm clouds? On such tracks as "Beg, Steal & Borrow" and "I Wonder Why," O shares this positive side, though he never lets us forget he isn't afraid to plug some slugs in a fool's ass.

Like other "Lil'" Houston rappers, O fills up his album with guest spots from various local MCs. O spars with Big Pokey on "Thug Niggaz Pt. 2," a jam with No Limit-style staccato beats. Big Moe takes time out from rapping about syrup to provide some chorus hooks on a few tunes, including "Slow Down," which sounds like O's very own "I Need Love." O actually lifts a line from P. Diddy, asking for "one bad bitch so I could spoil her." Zero, Hawk, ESG and other Screwed Up Click-ians also lend their talents, assuming ride-or-die stances for their road dog O.

Listeners can view Lil' O's schizoid approach to street philosophizing as either highly perplexing or highly entertaining. The latter is better; if you dwell too long on this is-he-glamorizing-or-debunking-gangsta-life thing, you're putting way too much thought into this album. Besides, you may even get a sick kick out of hearing O spew out his pimp rhetoric.

But with Lil' O, even the most do-ragged, screw-loving street urchin has to realize that it's more about the hustle than the struggle. Coming from every bandwidth of the ghetto-rap spectrum, O tries to make himself look all nice and playarific for the out-of-state consumers. He's not fooling his hometown folks, though. We know he's a bullshit artist with a good production team. On one track, he even admits it: "Yeah I'm bad / But I still gotta eat." It's not thug life this dude is rapping about, it's a thug fantasy.