T.I.’s long-awaited 10th studio album, Dime Trap, is finally here.
For the past decade-plus, trap music has indicated a particularly narrow musical aesthetic. It’s referred to a particular breed of Southern street rap, featuring ominous synthesizer sounds, booming bass and 808 drums. The lyrics have been mostly about selling drugs, street violence and evading 12, with other facets of an artist’s life taking a back seat.
T.I., one of the most important artists in the foundation of trap music, doesn’t place such restrictions on his definition of trap music. The Atlanta rapper—whose 2003 sophomore album Trap Muzik formally added the phrase into the hip-hop lexicon—has never been shy about using other styles in his version of trap, adeptly blending his street raps with mainstream pop appeal in the mid-to-late 2000s with albums like King and Paper Trail.
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