Lil Boosie - a minor setback for a major comeback

Today, november 14th, marks the birth of many great men. One of them would be Geert H aka Chainsaw aka Hoogie aka G.Pow aka Bompa. He's turning 36 years old today, which will be celebrated later today in due fashion.
However another birthday boy today is rapper Lil Boosie.
I'm not sure if people are into Lil Boosie because most of his records seem to have went under the radar and I never noticed much hype whenever he released some new album or mixtape. Now, I'll be the first to admit it wouldn't hurt Boosie to insert some form of quality control because not all his releases have delivered, but I gotta say I was blown away by Boosie's latest official release Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz! Even though a lot of the songs on this album were previously released on singles and mixtapes, which made it kinda hard to look at this as a new album, I still think the record sounds solid and cohesive. Songs like 'my avenue', 'top notch', 'better believe it', 'no mercy', 'crayola', 'Levi's', 'loose as a goose', and especially 'I'm a dog' and 'bank roll' are certified bangers in my book. And yes, while typing this it did occur to me that I'm merely enlisting Superbad's tracklist: I just like the entire album and I'm not afraid to say that for ten days after its release, Superbad didn't leave my car stereo and my headphones for a second. The only songs that I tend to skip on the regular are 'who can love you' and 'miss kissin on you', cause they are on the softer side of things and to me they seem to break with the overall vibe of the album. But I guess it's all good cause Boosie warned us beforehand that he'd put a couple of (and I quote) "songs for the ladies" on the record: "this time I cater to the ladies a little bit more because the ladies buying all the CDs".
Anyway, like I said today is Lil Boosie's 26th birthday, but I'm not sure if there's gonna be a lot of celebrating going on at Casa Boosie: just a couple of days ago Lil Boosie got sentenced to four years in prison for gun and drug charges, and probation violation.

As bad azz as he is, this father of six childeren doesn't seem to be bothered too much about his upcoming incarceration: he was quoted as saying this couldn't possibly hurt his career, because "I got enough music to last me. I got a Beatles catalogue. My music will take me a long way". To prove this a mixtape was released the day after his trial and it was appropriately named

The 25th Hour. Those of you who have seen the Spike Lee movie 25th Hour with Edward Norton will be able to capture the brilliance of naming this mixtape after that particular movie and basing the cover art on it: the movie is about a convicted criminal spending his last 24 hours as a free man before he will get locked up for seven years... I only gave this mixtape a couple of spins so far, but I gotta say I wasn't as instantly hooked on this release as I was on Superbad... What put me off at first listen were the countless mediocre guest appearances, like I said: a little quality control wouldn't hurt... Also it seems to lack a couple of straight up anthems in my ears. But maybe this will still grow on me, plus I guess I shouldn't be comparing a mixtape to an album anyway, so feel free to check it out for yourself here.

So here's to a happy birthday for Lil Boosie, and let's hope his incarceration turns out to be just a minor setback for a major comeback!