Receive Weekly Email and Text Message Updates:
Sign up for latest info on concerts, dining, promotions and more!
Go!

Most Popular

  • Getting Off
    Attorney Tyler Flood says he wins 80 percent of his clients' DWI trials, even if they were 100 percent drunk as a skunk.
  • City of Coffee
    Is Houston about to become America's coffee capital?
  • Houston's Choice for Mayor
    Black Guy, Rich White Guy, Lesbian or Hispanic Republican
  • Looking for a Bull Market
    Killen's Steakhouse in suburban Pearland is probably best during boom times.
  • Burgers and Hash
    Lola, a modern diner in the Heights is dishing up some top-notch Texas short-order cooking.
Most Popular sponsored by

Reader's Picks

Top Recommendations

A short list of Houston's most popular hot spots.
user content provided by: LikeMe.net & Houston Press

National Features >

  • City Pages

    Michele Bachmann, Unmuzzled

    You don't need to read Sarah Palin's book to hear the ravings of a mad woman.

    By Matt Snyders

  • Miami New Times

    Pimp Daddy

    The rise and fall of a chubby sex-cult leader.

    By Natalie O'Neill

  • Riverfront Times

    Babe 'n' Arms

    Tom was a hot-tempered cross-dresser with a garage full of guns--and then he became Rachel.

    By Nicholas Phillips

Chamillionaire, Ultimate Victory

CD Review

Share

  • rss

By Ben Westhoff

Published on October 02, 2007 at 2:12pm

When did mainstream rap become more relevant than its underground counterpart? Talib Kweli and El-P released self-congratulatory pap this year, while Kanye West's sincere, introspective Graduation sold almost a million copies in its first week. Now Chamillionaire's Ultimate Victory is ridiculously topical and, if not always thought-provoking, usually hilarious: "Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump stay arguing about nonsense, they'd treat me as good as Hugh Hef if I had a mansion full of blonde chicks." "If adultery was a felony, then Clinton would be a convict," he raps on "The Morning News." Later, on "The Evening News," he references Don Imus, Virginia Tech and Anna Nicole Smith in the same stanza. Along the way, Cham celebrates himself for getting rich, selling mucho ringtones and traveling to foreign countries, but his nerdy, charming style makes you forgive the braggadocio. Chamillionaire is the rare rapper who avoids beef, and here he name-drops or features as guests just about every MC imaginable: UGK, Slick Rick, Krayzie Bone and Lil Wayne, among others. Nothing here is as infectious as 2006 megahit "Ridin'," but Cham's mostly under-the-radar producers' understated beats let his likable flow sparkle.