No Mercy

Originally, No Mercy was going to be called King Uncaged. Its cover was going to feature T.I., in front of a stark white background, sunk deep into a wicker throne, a lion standing by his side. King Uncaged, an album we'll now presumably never hear, was to be Tip's first after he completed almost a year in prison, finishing up a gun sentence that could've sent him away for a whole lot longer. This was supposed to be the final triumphant chapter in Tip's redemption story, and everybody loves shit like that. Instead, life intervened. A Los Angeles traffic stop led to a drug arrest and a parole violation, and now T.I. is headed right back to prison for another 11 months. So No Mercy is a confused muddle, some of the material presumably recorded before the arrest and some of it after. It's called No Mercy presumably because King Recaged wasn't catchy enough, and the album cover seems to be T.I. either wiping away a tear or punching himself in the face. Given how the album turned out, the face-punch is exactly the right gesture.

T.I. sounds best when he's in dominant form, tossing punchlines at inferior rappers from a great height. His best tracks come with a sense of inevitability; you know, from the first moment you hear them, that they're going to boom out of passing cars for months to come. "What You Know" worked like that. "Rubber Band Man" worked like that. Even "Whatever You Like" worked like that. Absolutely nothing on No Mercy works like that. Simply put, introspection does not work for T.I. At this point, he has nothing thought-provoking left to say about his gun arrest or its aftermath, and it's no fun whatsoever to hear him say "I'm only human" or "Apologies to the fans" for the millionth time. But No Mercy is his third straight album of halfassed introspection. The things that were boring or simplistic about his forced humility have only gotten worse. On No Mercy, he sounds absolutely sapped of energy. And that's rough; nobody plays the ferocious livewire better.

The last time Tip made an album like this, he was just about to head off to prison, and he scored the biggest hit of his career with the maudlin but catchy "Live Your Life". Here, he tries to repeat that success, roping in a wide and dazzling cast of collaborators to chase a commercial hit that he sounds too depleted to actually score. No Mercy, I'm almost positive, is the first album to feature contributions from both Swedish pop mastermind Max Martin and Houston rap O.G. Scarface. The assembled list of guests and contributors is just nuts: Kanye West, Eminem, Drake, Christina Aguilera, Dr. Luke, the Neptunes. But too often, this amazing assemblage of talents seems to want to make introspective Flo Rida tracks-- and, worse, they fail at it. "Big Picture" has an emaciated synth-rap track so tinny that I can barely believe DJ Toomp produced it. The-Dream has never sounded more like Chester Bennington than he does on the ill-advised crunch-rock title track. And album closer "Castle Walls" is downright insulting-- Tip wallowing in his rich-guy sorrows as a wave of gloopy Europop keyboard washes over him. "Everyone thinks I have it all, but it's so empty living behind these castle walls," Christina Aguilera sings on the hook. Yeah, that must be really tough. My sympathies, rich people.

Throughout No Mercy, Tip remains an absolutely impeccable rapper, delivering even his lamest pieces of self-help nothingness in masterful clumps of singsong cadence and slurry double-time bounce. I get the impression that he could still absolutely rip a track to shreds if he could only get himself excited about the prospect. And every so often, No Mercy crackles to life, and we hear flashes of the rap hero Tip could still be. "Amazing", for instance, finds the Neptunes taking it back to 2002, delivering the sort of chilly minimalist computer-funk that they never make anymore, and Tip just dives into those chasms of empty space with the assurance of an old pro (Pharrell gets the best punchline, though: "That dark blue shit? Y'all niggas been had/ My diamonds rainbowed like they registered for GLAAD."). And "I Can't Help It" is a blaring, menacing gangsta-rap crawl that gives Tip a chance to just attack in a way he rarely lets himself anymore. But a quick guest appearance on "Strip" highlights everything that's wrong with even the album's best moments. T.I.'s exuberant protege Young Dro careens onto the track with the sort of joyous virtuosity that T.I. used to display. Maybe he'll show it again. Not for at least another 11 months, though.