In the two years since his debut album, the now 20-year-old
Hurricane Chris has done some growing up, but you wouldn’t say he’s matured.
Unleashed is a Dirty South party record that’s nasty as it wants to be, with plenty of bedroom bragging and booty worship. Fans expecting a fairly clean follow-up to his breakthrough hit “A Bay Bay” instead get the extra horny "Headboard," which steals a couple good ideas from
Lil Wayne’s “Mrs. Officer” while adding special guest
Plies for that street authenticity. Better still is the more Southern-fried “Halle Berry (She’s Fine),” with Dallas-based production team
Play-N-Skillz bringing that ratchet beat as
Chris imagines the Dirty South dream girl with “Even though she’s got class/She listen to UGK.” Some of his insults are fun too, as “I’m Back” gives up “I spit the hard lyrics/That make the listeners bite down/And to me you sound like a woman/You need a nightgown,” but this pimp from Shreveport sounds best when swaggering and rarely steps out of his comfort zone. Knowing this makes for a limited listen, the executive producers stop the track count at ten, giving hip-hop hedonists just what they paid for with none of that tedious “and then some.” ~ David Jeffries