On “Catch Up,” the rapper acknowledges the damage drugs and alcohol will do to him, but . . .
He doesn’t care. That cut and others celebrate substance abuse. He’s especially fond of smoking marijuana (“Game Got Switched,” “Mouthing Off,” “Stick ‘Em Up,” “Fat Rabbit”). Obscenities course through the veins of this diseased disc. The boastful artist’s affection for oral sex (“Southern Hospitality”) doesn’t begin to suggest the audiopornography lying in wait. Graphic descriptions of casual and/or deviant sex involve exhibitionism in a public rest room, a classroom, a movie theater, a library, on stage and on a rooftop in front of the girl’s boyfriend. Sexploits also include a threesome, sadomasochism and filming intimate behavior. Theologically, Ludacris praises Buddha and claims to be “half Allah, half antichrist superstar” (“Mouthing Off”). At least five raps glamorize gangsta violence. “1st & 10” boasts of shooting people and burying them seven feet deep (“Put seven in your chest . . . In these streets I’m a murderer”). A guest rapper states, “B–ch n–gaz die for me . . . The coroner is catching his breath like he got asthma” (“Stick ‘Em Up”).
At age 12, Chris Bridges jumped into hip-hop with both feet. A decade later he’s up to his neck in sonic sewage as Ludacris, a lewd rapper determined to be even more sensational and repulsive than his peers. He gets pretty close.
