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Life & Arts

Lil' Flip gets his just desserts with album 

Houston-based rapper returns with full force with new release 
despite being under the radar for a few years

by CHRIS ELLIOTT
The Daily Cougar

It may not have been the smartest move financially for Lil' Flip to sever his ties from recording kingpin Columbia/Sony Records, but it sure seemed to make a difference in the quality of his latest album release, I Need Mine. 

Houston's self-proclaimed free-style king seemed to get back to his roots in this one. I Need Mine was released under Asylum Records, a sect of Warner Brothers, and it has the same feel to it as Lil' Flip's previous records. No, he's not exactly free styling for six minutes straight like he did back in the day, and there are no screwed and chopped tracks. Other than a few tracks, I Need Mine has that Southern sound and improvisation feel U Gotta Feel Me clearly lacked, despite its platinum album sales.

The perfect example of Flip's transition is his team up with Southern rap icons UGK in the "You'z A Trick" remix. Like most of the tracks on the album, "You'z A Trick" is about money, but the collaboration between Pimp C, Bun B, and Lil' Flip is done to perfection, which makes a track based on a played-out topic enjoyable.

Both "What it Do" and the "You A Trick" (Remix) are on the albums second CD, which is composed of 17 tracks. The first CD has 20 tracks and is the better half of the two, despite UGK's appearance on the second disk.

"I Get Money," featuring Rick Ross, "Fly Boy" and "Starched & Clean" featuring Lil' Keke and Big Pokey provide that Southern feeling that Lil' Flip had in his previous independent albums and Underground Legend. 

He also brings back some of that cleverness and sting that made him so popular as an independent artist in the streets of Houston back in the day.

Lil' Flip isn't afraid to talk about how much better off he is since his departure from Sony either. He flat out said in the intro to "I Get Money" that he got out of his contract with Sony by giving up $2 million out of his own pockets, and in "Starched & Clean" Fliperachi felt it necessary to make something else clear in his first verse.

"Homey I'm free styling. I'm not writing."

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