Album Review: Birdman 5* Stunna
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Artist:
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Album:5* Stunna
With 5 * Stunna Birdman, aka Baby, hasn't made anything legendary, but he has made something hood-worthy. He rhymes about the usual mainstream rapper topics: hustling, bitches, cars, and poppin' bottles. But with tightly-produced tracks, Birdman's delivered a hot winter soundtrack for the hood.Take, for example, "I Run This," the album's second song. It's a bass-thumping banger, its beat expertly paired with a hypnotic,driving loop that squeals and threatens like a siren. This song sounds best when driving to your homeboy's cousin's crib in the hood, in an over-packed car with tinted windows, while everyone's screaming out Weezy's hook, "I run this bitch and I'ma keep runnin'/I'ma keep runnin, but I'm never runnin' outta money!" With speakers turned up so loud the windows rattle, the beat is soon etched into your memory, a memory worth reliving whenever the next blizz is passed around.
Birdman looks to "B.M., Jr." Weezy to provide catchy hooks on a few other tracks, one being "Make Way," featuring Fat Joe. Over synth and drum rolls, Lil Wayne delivers his lines in his newfound reggae singing voice. "Me come for murder dem all the cowboy way/Me lick a shot sprayed from me set/Me make way! Make way!" Has Lil Wayne been vacationing in Jamaica, or has he been spending too much time with reggae artist Sizzla (who guests on Wayne's "The Only Reason")?
"Pop Bottles" is another standout. "Father" and "Son" are at their best here, each taking turns delivering rhymes of celebratory baller-status circumstances, all of which are deemed worthy of bottle-poppin'. Birdman's rapping technique doesn't involve much ("Went from sittin' in a cell to sittin' on a jet/From sh--tin in a cell to sh--tin on a jet."), and it's Weezy's opening verse that is the highlight. Even Birdman knows: "Junior is the best."
"I'm a Stunna" recalls those good old Mannie Fresh-produced Cash Money records. It's a tried and true formula: Birdman's easy, New Orleans-accented delivery over "trap star" drum rolls. It's no wonder this song's structure seems like it could've been built off of Birdman and Mannie's Big Tymers' hit "Get Your Roll On" (I Got Work,2000). Big Tymers rapped about "gator boots with the pimped out Gucci suit," while here Baby's gone ga-ga over "livin' with the gators on the seats." I guess a bit has changed; his pockets sure got a lot fatter. Incidentally, that same Big Tymers album has a track called "#1 Stunna," so while the similar-sounding beat's been tweaked and updated, it's definitely an old subject for Birdman to proclaim himself as the #1 Stunna. Then again, who's really paying attention to the lyrics when the album's production is this (dare I say) stellar?
The same way you don't drive around the hood listening to one album all the way through, you don't want to listen to all the tracks on 5* Stunna in one sitting. Twenty-two tracks (including bonus tracks, an intro, outro, and three interludes) is too much; the monotone quality of Birdman's voice starts to grate. As the CEO of Cash Money, he’s made a smart move by putting himself, and just himself, in the spotlight for only eight of the albums songs. Lil Wayne’s many contributions were necessary, not only to help sales, but to offer those catchy hooks over instrumentation that will keep your car bumpin’ as you pass through the hood.
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