Release Therapy
(Def Jam)
We know Ludacris acted in Crash, but the way this Dirty South-drawling rapper has changed his tune, you’d think he had written the film.
Luda didn’t totally give up his famous red-light fare. His Therapy material finds our bawdy clown in full funky flower in his can-rattling strip-club anthem “Money Maker,” with Pharrell, and a dopey romancer “Woozy,” co-starring R. Kelly. Nobody mistakes “Girls Gone Wild” for stoic.
But if stark moments such as his Oz-worthy “Do Your Time” (with once-incarcerated Beanie Sigel) aren’t weirdly sullen for Luda, check “War with God.” Angrier than ever atop a liquid bebop riff, Luda not only disses rap bucks looking to step to him (not by name, but you get the drift), he also wears his no-arrest record with shocking pride.
“Never claimed to be nothing, but who I am/Never sold cocaine, but I’m still the man.” In this stop-snitching era, that makes Luda brave and serious. Give him an Oscar for that.
