![]() ![]() Here, he tries to repeat that success, roping in a wide and dazzling cast of collaborators to chase a commercial hit that he sounds too depleted to actually score. The last time Tip made an album like this, he was just about to head off to prison, and he scored the biggest hit of his career with the maudlin but catchy "Live Your Life". And that's rough nobody plays the ferocious livewire better. On No Mercy, he sounds absolutely sapped of energy. The things that were boring or simplistic about his forced humility have only gotten worse. But No Mercy is his third straight album of halfassed introspection. At this point, he has nothing thought-provoking left to say about his gun arrest or its aftermath, and it's no fun whatsoever to hear him say "I'm only human" or "Apologies to the fans" for the millionth time. Simply put, introspection does not work for T.I. ![]() Absolutely nothing on No Mercy works like that. Even "Whatever You Like" worked like that. His best tracks come with a sense of inevitability you know, from the first moment you hear them, that they're going to boom out of passing cars for months to come. sounds best when he's in dominant form, tossing punchlines at inferior rappers from a great height. Given how the album turned out, the face-punch is exactly the right gesture. either wiping away a tear or punching himself in the face. It's called No Mercy presumably because King Recaged wasn't catchy enough, and the album cover seems to be T.I. So No Mercy is a confused muddle, some of the material presumably recorded before the arrest and some of it after. is headed right back to prison for another 11 months. A Los Angeles traffic stop led to a drug arrest and a parole violation, and now T.I. ![]() This was supposed to be the final triumphant chapter in Tip's redemption story, and everybody loves shit like that. King Uncaged, an album we'll now presumably never hear, was to be Tip's first after he completed almost a year in prison, finishing up a gun sentence that could've sent him away for a whole lot longer. Its cover was going to feature T.I., in front of a stark white background, sunk deep into a wicker throne, a lion standing by his side. ![]() Originally, No Mercy was going to be called King Uncaged. ![]()
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