Chamillionaire - Mixtape Messiah: Part 2

Chamillionaire was the hot new artist of 2006 with the super smash hit single “Ridin Dirty”—so popular in fact that Weird Al Yankovic had to make a parody single “White and Nerdy.”  Chamillionaire is new to most of the people across the country, but for some in the South; Cham offered a sneak peaks of his skills while blazing the underground mixtape scene.  Sadly, I didn’t get to hear Chamillionaire before he became famous, but I have heard enough of his album (and some other features on mixtapes,) which lead me to believe that this guy really has some talent!

The latest mixtape from Chamillionaire is entitled Mixtape Messiah Part 2.  One hell of a name to live up to—especially with all of the unique and hot mixtapes on the market right now.  In this outing, Chamillionaire uses his range in harmonizing as well as metaphoric skills to try and dazzle the listener.  Sadly, this mixtape does not accomplish the goals he was trying to reach.

The mixtape starts out very slow and elementary (except for the intro—which is Hotness with a capitol ‘H’).  The lyrics in the early tracks are very simple and expected.  I found myself finishing many of his verses upon my first listen to the track!!!  No disrespect to Chamillionaire, but some rhymes were so simple that I found myself laughing out loud.  I was expecting to hear something new and fresh…especially from the ‘Mixtape Messiah.’  Some cuts work better for his style than others.  The other serious negative is an overabundance of skits where he verbally attacks the people who have attacked him in the past.  The problem is that the people he is talking about aren’t famous (that anyone knows about,) but instead are people who bootlegged his songs, stole his jewelry, and straight played him.  He does this at least five times and I see it as unnecessary and repetitive to the point that the mixtape’s flow is unbalanced.

Don’t get me wrong though, Chamillionaire gets plenty right on this mixtape.  Many say that rappers shouldn’t sing, but this is just not the case now-a-days.  Even the best rappers will harmonize their chorus’ themselves without the use of a singer (i.e. Eminem, Kanye West.)  Chamillionaire has a really good voice for rap and for harmonizing.  He honestly sounds like a long lost member of Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony.  The later tracks pretty much pick up right where his solid debut album left off.  ‘Ridin Overseas’ is where the mixtape really begins.  After about nine useless tracks, we have ourselves a pretty good mixtape, most of which could even be profitable singles if they were to ever be released.

Overall, Mixtape Messiah Part 2 is far from its title.  A serious plus here is that Chamillionaire actually released this mixtape for FREE!  He wants you to download the mixtape, in hopes that people will ultimately purchase his next album—instead of downloading it.  Chamillionaire has enough talent to put together an almost flawless mixtape and on MM2 he cheated his listeners 50%.  Hence, the score for this mixtape will also be around 50%...