I'm sure I have nostalgia for my late teens/early 20s, but I still maintain that the 2000s was a good era for mainstream rap music. The radio played a diversity of sound & subject matter, & emcees were still really, really rapping. 2004 was a year where you heard "Jesus Walks" & "Why?" by Jadakiss on Top 40 radio alongside "Drop It Like It's Hot" & "Lean Back," "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" & "I Like the Way You Move" sharing airplay with "Welcome Back" by Ma$e. At the tail end of this storied year, Ludacris dropped his 2nd consecutive #1 album, which I uphold as the best possible version of mainstream rap. The Red Light District is a fine example for anybody trying to court the pop charts & dancefloor without losing their artistic integrity, street cred, or hiphop bona fides.
First of all, Luda was really spitting on this album! Most of the time he favors relatively simple flows with clearly articulated punchlines, but every once in a while he'll break out the quick-tongue, go on a multi-syllable run or surprise you with an intriguing phrase ("Put the booty of a Swish' at the end of a flame" is one of the most creative ways I've ever heard to describe the lighting of a blunt, while also sounding really, probably unintentionally, gay). Luda is probably the best quick-tongue rapper who does it least often--he never wants to alienate his audience, & his pop instincts tell him that a little fast rap goes a long way.
Luda's commanding, booming vocal presence is helped by the absolutely huge production. This album sounds expensive, with lots of vocal tracks compressed up-front & layered thickly over every song. ONP takes a left turn from their trademark live band sound into "Blueberry Yum Yum," with a trippy keyboard line, sub bass & sparse drums underneath multitracked vocals from both Luda & Sleepy Brown. Luda imitates an echo effect with his voice, adding to the off-kilter cool of a great smoker's anthem. The sure-shot dancefloor combo of Timbaland & Ludacris join forces for "The Potion," with Tim's usual clattery percussion, squealing vocal chops & sinuous synths. There was no way this one wasn't going to go stupid in the club. We also get the obligatory "tryna get my life right" reflective song in the Teena Marie-sampling Nate Dogg feature "Child of the Night," where DK All Day does his best to capture Kanye's sound. Speaking of imitation, the album's weirdest production moment has to be "Spur of the Moment," featuring DJ Quik & produced by DTP's LT Moe. The track sounds exactly like a DJ Quik beat, which is fine in & of itself--it does a credible job of recreating the sundrenched, laidback Cali sound with its portamento synths. But it must have been weird for Quik to be invited to lay a guest verse on a poor man's version of one of his beats.
While we're on the subject of features, I've always wondered why you would pay a rapper to not rap. I guess it was flattering for DMX that they only wanted him on "Put Your Money" for a hook & an adlib, but my attitude is as long as you hired the guy, get him to drop a verse. I know Def Jam was good for it. At any rate, "Put Your Money" is a good example of what made Luda special in comparison to his peers: his albums had a diversity of subject matter. I don't think many other mainstream rap guys at the time were writing songs about being a compulsive gambler.
Yeah, I have some quibbles about this album. I love timpani, but the "Get Back" beat has way too much of it, to the point where it's almost constant. The Austin Powers references on "Number One Spot" did not age well (who really gives a shit about Austin Powers anymore?) but I doubt the song was really intended to stand the test of time (despite the opening line "I'm never going nowhere"), & I love the single-rhyme 1st verse. The album sags a bit in the middle, with generic tough-guy joints like "Pass Out" & "Who Not Me," but unlike a lot of albums this long, it comes roaring back at the end with album highlights like the bluesy Trick Daddy feature "Hopeless" & "Virgo." Yeah, I'm a Virgo, but I also don't really care about zodiac signs & I mostly love this song because Luda, Nas & Doug are all doing top-notch work, & by closing his album with it, Luda is paying respect to the old school, the origins of hiphop, & the NY scene while staying proudly southern.
I'll acknowledge that I'm likely biased because it was the only one I had on CD, but I think The Red Light District is probably Luda's best album. Chicken-n-Beer has some great songs but a lot of filler, & Word of Mouf is still a bit immature & undisciplined. This album found the 27-year-old emcee starting to emerge into grown man territory while still in touch with the fire & irreverence of his early career--& most importantly, aside from a few minor misfires, it still knocks to this day.
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