ASYLUM RECORDS: TWO-FER-TWO

The first two great albums of the new year.

Webbie Savage Life 2
Trill Ent./Asylum
[d/l]

Shawty Lo Units In The City
D4L Records/Asylum
[d/l]

Damn, it seems the homie Todd Moscowitz might know what he's doing...Less than two months into 2008, Asylum is delivering not one but two praise-worthy albums this Tuesday.

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Trill E-N-T, but I've always been kind of indifferent about Young Webster. There was a lot I liked about Savage Life Uno, but the fact that so much of it was rehashed from the Gangsta Musik album kinda left me wondering if Webbie might be the Craig Mack of the crew. In his defense, playing Pippen to Boosie's effortless 23 of the Trill would probably marginalize most rappers. But somewhere along the way, while listen to "Independent," it occurred to me that, wait, Webbie is actually kind of a good rapper ("The stilettos, the J's, depend on how the weather look/Flip flop slippers just to show off the pedicure"). The album confirms my suspicions that Trill is truly the new Cash Money. As if Mouse's trippy, Mannie-Fresh influenced bounce tracks weren't enough, the Chubby Boy himself gets in on the party with 3 tracks (including the standout "Ya'll Ain't Makin' No Money"). This album bangs from top to bottom. Another worthy addition to Trill's rock solid catalog.

Unless you count the mediocre USDA album, last year was pretty dead in terms of that old fashioned Atlanta dope boy rap. Now, in a remarkable strike of beginners luck, Shawty Lo pops out a cohesive album full of irreseistably catchy anthems of the d-boy persuasian. It's a bit of a compilation of the best of his mixtapes, but if you don't know L-O outside of D4L and "Dey Know," you will be pleasantly surprised by the lack of filler on here. His too-cool melodic swagger is similar to Jeezy's, but he proves almost more adept than the Snowman when it comes to light-hearted, quirky club sing-alongs filled with 808s and sparse lo-fi insturmentation. "Dey Know," "Dunn, Dunn," "Foolish," "Let's Get It," "That's Shawty LO" and "Got Em 4 The L-O" are nearly flawless in their simplicity. He even gets introspective on the autobiographical "Feels Good To Be Here" and the strangely emo, Linkin Park-esque "Live My Life." For someone who wrote his first song in 2005, Lo seems preternaturally sure of his style, sound and identity compared to most of his more seasoned peers. Twinkle-twinkle...he's a stizz-ar!