Friends overshadow Flo Rida on debut CD
By BRETT JOHNSON - Associated Press - 03/23/08
Possessing one of hip-hop’s least inventive aliases, Tramar Dillard, a.k.a. Flo Rida, (he’s from Florida, get it?) is equally as obvious when it comes to his commercial ambitions. His debut disc, ‘‘Mail On Sunday,’’ is a high-energy affair aimed squarely at earning urban radio spins. The disc is loaded mostly with uptempo party songs and a long list of guest appearances from key names such as Timbaland, will.i.am, Lil Wayne, Sean Kingston and Rick Ross.
For Flo Rida, that strategy may work against him. He has trouble standing out amid the charisma and familiar-sounding deliveries of his established friends. A prime example is the chart-topping single ‘‘Low,’’ which features state compatriot T-Pain lending the song’s girl-crazy chorus — ‘‘Apple Bottom jeans and boots with the fur/ the whole club was looking at her.’’ The song sounds like a Nelly knock-off.
Elsewhere, on ‘‘Elevator,’’ Flo Rida’s unremarkable double-time rhymes whiz by before Timbaland’s chanted hook — ‘‘This girl is stuck on my ele-ele-elevator’’ — leaves an indelible mark on your brain.
Not much Flo Rida offers has the same effect. Even when he shows his sensitive thug side (‘‘Me & U’’ and ‘‘All My Life’’), the sentiments are admirable, not memorable.
CHECK OUT: Timbaland’s production on ‘‘Elevator’’ is a big, bawdy synth beat with space-age sound effects and Flo Rida’s rhymes about a girl with a ‘‘stacked top model body.’’
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