Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Here is the 411 on T.I. Vs. T.I.P. If you’re under 25, you probably know this anyway. If you’re 25 or over, you probably don’t care. However…

T.I. is a rapper who sells bunches and bunches of tracks and is not exactly shy about spreading the word concerning his abilities. If it’s true, it’s not bragging, but some of T.I.’s peers have taken issue with his opinions concerning his abilities relative to theirs. The genesis of T.I. vs. T.I.P. is that since there is no one doing what T.I. does as well as he does, he can only compete with himself. T.I. used to go by the moniker T.I.P., hence the title. And I don’t want to encourage trouble or anything, but…T.I. vs. T.I.P. is really, really good, eighteen tracks of solid dirty south rap and dissing and braggadocio.

T.I. vs. T.I.P. is divided into three parts, seven T.I.P. tracks, seven T.I. tracks, and four T.I. vs. T.I.P. tracks. Yeah, it’s a gimmick, almost a distraction, and I will leave it to people who are deeper into this than I am and smarter than I am to explain precisely the difference between the T.I. and the T.I.P. tracks. I do know that T.I.P. is the gangsta persona, and T.I. The squared-away side, but all of the tracks, regardless of who is credited, have elements of either or both. For my part, the T.I. tracks have the more interesting guests, Eminem on “Touchdown” and Nelly on “Show It To Me,” but the T.I.P. tracks are. As they say, dope, especially the first single, “Big S**t Poppin’” and the confrontational “Watch What You Say To Me” which features Jay-Z. There’s nothing here that you’d want to play for your mom (unless you’re from Baltimore or New Orleans) and the tracks will undoubtedly start a whole new round of beefs in the community, as they call it, but what Al Sharpton and Russell Simmons and, unfortunately, even Bill Cosby don’t understand is that if these guys weren’t arguing over a song, they’d be fighting over something else.

T.I. vs. T.I.P. demonstrates that rap can still sell tracks. Y’all just gotta work at it a little bit. And T.I., or T.I.P., or whoever he is this week, works it.