“Maaaannn…” Atlanta MC and self-appointed liquor store mascot Playboy Tre laments on his latest mixtape/album, The Last Call (which you can get for free here). Tre can’t stand what he sees around him: inferior, inauthentic rappers who don’t spit from the gut; haters, downers, and naggers blowing his buzz; and a rap landscape in which he is not more successful, in which he has to outwork everybody and work constantly to maintain his stature in hip-hop, for frequently diminishing returns. The Last Call finds Treboy Play at his hardest and most aggressive, attacking wack rappers and haters with fewer introspective moments than his other mixtapes, all over the most epic production of the summer this side of Teflon Don.
Album opener “Welcome Back” finds Tre defiant and defensive over an urgent blaxploitation track, welcoming back, well, nobody. Like a Doberman pricking his ears and baring his teeth at an unknown on-comer, Tre immediately digs in and defends his turf. The sample repeats “I need you baby,” and it is unclear who needs what more: Tre needing his place in the rap game or rap needing Tre to fend off all fakeness and negativity. Followed by “What the Fuck is Up,” produced by “Liquor Store Mascot” beatsmith Phantom (who has some of the best beats on the mixtape), the first two tracks set the tone for the urgency, aggressiveness, and amazing production that marks the rest of the album. As a chopped sample wonders just “what the fuck is up” over regal horns and a pulsating 808 drum line, Treboy threatens to “burn these niggas like blunts and throw the ash out.” Lesser cats will not take away the shine he has worked so hard to earn over his last two works. In his first mixtape, Goodbye America, a contemplative Tre, already 10 years deep in his hip-hop career, considers leaving his country of birth to seek opportunity elsewhere, opportunity his homeland is incapable of affording him. His second free album, Liquor Store Mascot, saw him somberly and sometimes playfully examining his own vices and shortcomings (Tre is an admitted alcoholic) and gained him increased exposure and a loyal fan base. Now, the man most often the bridesmaid and never the bride (writing on T.I.’s Paper Trail, sidekick to B.o.B.) can finally smell his own success, closer than it has ever been; now, it is his time to outwork and outperform the competition or miss an opportunity that probably won’t come again due to the unforgiving and fickle hip-hop fandom. The standoffish and hard as fuck “Bitch I Be Hustlin’” is over 5 minutes of aggressive head-banging, with Tre getting heavy metal while demanding others “quit telling me lies and get on the motherfucking grind.” Contrary to his rap name, he has no time for games. Anthem “2 Be or Not 2 Be” has the best hook on the album and once again encourages the listener to hustle hard, but warns of the repercussions.
“Chill Sometimes” also waxes on the flipside to all the emotional, intense energy Tre has balled up inside of him, as the track ends with him chilling in jail because he could not chill and walk away when faced with a conflict in the club: “shoulda kept my stupid ass at home … see what happen when you don’t chill, man?” If he didn’t take a deep breath in the club, he at least is smart enough to give the listener a couple respites from his passionate, occasionally overwhelming tunnel vision with a few well-chosen introspective tracks that slow the tempo and lower the intensity. What they are not are throwaway lulls in quality, as the production and lyrics stay on point. Tre speaks on his mother’s influence and a teenage near-death experience in “Earline Son” and espouses a wisdom that only comes with age on “Wonderful Life,” as singer Sean Faylon croons on the hook, “life can be so wonderful, and you can make it right, it’s all about what you know.” The guest appearances from Scar and Homebwoi solidly compliment Tre’s, providing some baritone to his higher-pitched vocals, and Joell Ortiz spits an absolute fire verse on another standout, the Isley Brothers-sampling “Work.” Like in his other work, even the skits are worthwhile, here hilarious and incisive commentary on hip-hop’s favorite new standard, the mixtape. Tre humorously criticizes the inane drops that litter too many mixtapes and the unnecessary clown DJs (“DJ PRODUCE got that fruit!”) who make them. The Last Call is refreshingly free of such distractions except on the album’s three biting sonic satires, allowing the focus to rest entirely on the music.
The commentaries on the mixtape as a medium don’t end there and actually make for some the work’s most compelling declarations. The Last Call is a body of completely original material, so it is an album in all but name (that’s why I’ve kept switching terminologies – for the uninitiated, in rap, free album = mixtape). What exactly a mixtape is and whether giving away an album for free under its guise is sound business has been debated at large, including at an industry panel I attended in October in which the panelists called the mixtape label a shield to deflect criticism and G-Unit producer/mastermind Sha Money XL crassly stated, “You don’t want to shoot your load on something you’re not gonna sell.” As an artist whose catalogue is comprised entirely of such works (free albums, mixtapes, whatever you want to call them) Tre defends his distribution choice as the best way to reach his fans, the people who will demonstrate their loyalty time and again: “and then they ask you questions like what’s your amount of spins / they got fans in the street but they ain’t countin’ them / so we record albums, call them mixtapes / put ‘em up for free so the world can see what’s up with me…” The mixtape is an undeniably great promotional tool, but how exactly one can even eat giving away their product for free with no strings attached remains to be seen as Tre mourns in the very next line, “Mama called and say the house nearin’ foreclosure, and now I’m like who gives a fuck about the exposure?” On The Last Call, Playboy Tre is in complete survival mode, caught between doing what he loves for the fans that love him but still dealing with his lack of commercial and monetary success, seeing too few allies and too many detractors for his liking. Album closer “Said and Done” (before the strangely tacked-on and already released B.o.B. feature “We Are the Robots”) declares “you’ll be standing when it’s all said and done.” Whether it is reassuring the listener or Tre is up for grabs, but what is clear after listening to The Last Call is that Playboy Tre will stand his ground until he has nothing more to work for.
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