Once every generation, a hip-hop artist comes along with the uncanny ability to discuss the injustice of the society in which he was raised and to generate support for a revolution of thought. Ludacris is not one of them. Ludacris’ gift is to entertain his audience with hilarious metaphors and incredibly vivid imagery. It is a style of hip-hop all his own, and has resulted in albums consistently “putting up McDonald’s numbers,” as Ludacris puts it in his song “Blow it Out Your Ass.” “Chicken-N-Beer” is Ludacris’ third major label album, and while it may not be his best album, it is certainly his funniest.

Many consider Ludacris to be a lyrical acrobat and he displays this talent as he navigates his way from one metaphor to the next in the song “Hip-Hop Quotables.” In this very impressive display of lyrical mastery, Ludacris — the hip-hop version of Chris Rock — performs a comedy routine in 64 straight lines of rap without a chorus. Here, Ludacris concedes that he is ready to grow up and that he “is looking for a woman just to put [his] stamp on.” But, unfortunately for him, he can only seem to find women that are “more stuck up than tampons.” Despite all of the humor this song contains, Ludacris maintains a tough persona by threatening to “put [his] foot so deep in yo’ ass that you can smell it, and yo’ breath will turn to Foot Locker water repellent.”

Perhaps his finest song on the album is a track aptly named “Hoes in my Room.” In this song Ludacris continues what has become a running theme throughout his albums: discussing promiscuous women. This is the third installment of the series and is no less humorous than the previous two. In order to outdo himself, Ludacris has recruited an authority on promiscuous women, or as he refers to them, “hoes.” This expert is none other than the Snoop D-O Double Gizzle himself, Snoop Dogg. The track raises an age-old question in the music industry: “Who let these hoes in my room?” Ludacris and Snoop Dogg display their frustration with their security guards’ indiscriminate admittance of unattractive women into their dressing rooms after a concert. In this account Ludacris claims that he was confronted by “five B.A.P. hoes [who] look like trash, but one was a midget so we’ll say four and a half.” Ludacris uses this song to take one of his many shots at Fox News TV personality Bill O’Reilly (who cost Ludacris an endorsement with Pepsi last year), by accusing him of being the guilty party in the allowance of the undesirable women in his dressing room.

With this album, Ludacris proves that he is much more than a passing fad in the rap game and cements his place among the top hip-hop artists in the industry today. In an age where the thug image has become a requirement for success and where rappers wear bullet wounds like badges of honor, Ludacris proves that an artist can still be successful using humor and wit in his lyrics. Although it may not be as well-produced as his previous two albums, “Chicken-N-Beer” is still one of the most entertaining hip-hop albums of the year. Ludacris validates his claim that he is “the new phenomenon, like white women with ass.”

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