‘The L.I.B.R.A.’ Takes Listeners on a Journey Through the Evolving Worldview of T.I.

Todd Gilchrist

What’s most interesting on T.I.’s latest album, “The L.I.B.R.A.,” is how complicated the rapper makes his fans’ relationship, not just with him, but with the culture and community that empowered him. The multi-platinum rapper is by himself a study in contradictions — artist and athlete, convict and philanthropist, business executive and a real one. But over the past several years his erudition as a lyricist has outpaced the reckoning hip-hop still needs to have with its depictions of race, gender and materialism, even while he traffics in that same imagery. That clash has generated an intriguing and sometimes problematic disparity between what Clifford Harris knows and what he’s still selling, but it’s also what keeps listeners riveted on “The L.I.B.R.A.,” by far his most compelling full-length in years even if some of its messages don’t quite fit together into a consistent worldview.

Part of the challenge for a rapper like T.I., who has become an elder statesman in an industry that prizes youth, is staying relevant, and he does that here by enlisting a murderer’s row of chart-toppers and up-and-comers to give his work some added commercial heft. Young Thug, Lil Baby and 21 Savage are by far the best known of his next-generation collaborators, but what makes each of their contributions special is the way he brings out their best, giving them a platform to really maximize their talents opposite a rapper with the versatility, and most of all, maturity to allow them space to breathe and explore. Lil Baby’s verse on “Pardon,” one of the album’s two lead singles, ranks among the North Carolina rapper’s best to date, while T.I. sounds reinvigorated not only on his two verses, but in a chorus that he sings himself. Similarly, Young Thug’s focus on “Ring” feels sharper than ever, while he and T.I. trade verse about how they handle their problems in an era where half the problems they deal with seem to start on social media before ending up in the street.

As over-discussed as “beefs” may be in hip-hop, there’s something not just musically compelling but thought-provoking when an artist like T.I., with a laundry list of them, discusses the topic. Whether as a matter of practicality or legality, his targets are largely reduced to abstract figures, but it makes these hurdles feel more universal as a consequence, and even relatable to the average individual contemplating how to address their latest Twitter kerfuffle (celebrities — they’re just like us!). There’s also a predictable level of swagger, but it’s precisely that kind of street-drama theatricality that keeps drawing listeners to artists like T.I., even (or especially) when those experiences are not a reality to them. These narratives aren’t always accurate, or successful — though he helped popularize trap music, for example, it’s an overstatement to suggest that he put Atlanta on the hip-hop map, as he suggests on “Hit Dogs Holla.” But T.I.’s braggadocio is mostly well-earned and convincing, particularly after cultivating a reputation for squabbling away from the microphone.

Conversely, among the rappers of his same approximate age and echelon, T.I. has shown a remarkable sophistication and growth in the last several years. His guest verse on Anderson .Paak’s “Come Down” references COINTELPRO; on Kanye West’s 2018 single “Ye vs. the People,” he squares off against West’s political contrarianism with not just a fantastic verse but a great, empathetic, informed point of view. On “The L.I.B.R.A.,” is sense of spirituality is a throughline I wasn’t expecting to jump out but it becomes an ongoing referendum on how to live according to the right principles — even asking what makes them right. On the mournful, angry “How I Feel,” T.I. duets with Eric Bellinger about Black Lives Matter (“Fuck all that protestin’ and marchin’ peacefully / They still gon’ find a way to handle us egregiously”) while trading verses with rapper Killer Mike about Trayvon Martin, culminating in a bracing argument why he feels that peaceful protest isn’t just unsuccessful, but a tool of the system he hopes to dismantle: “The art of not fightin’ back was brought to us by Christianity / that was given to us by our oppressor.”

Further, there’s the dialogue of “Family Connect,” where T.I. and his son Domani discuss the paths they took to independence and success, reconciling their roles in each other’s lives, the assistance and support given and received, and the advice imparted between a veteran artist and one who’s just arriving. Notwithstanding the track’s latter-day Outkast vibes — setting a perfect tone for their musical conversation — its confessional honesty elevates the rest of T.I.’s work much like Jay-Z’s verses about Blue Ivy elevate his ready-made bangers. Meanwhile as a matter of diversity as much obligation, T.I. throws in milder, catchier tracks like “Moon Juice (Feat. Jeremih and Snoop Dogg),” focusing on romance and women in a way that leavens the harder tracks, but unfortunately undercuts the more progressive, even militant point of view that he espouses elsewhere on the album.

It’s in these juxtapositions T.I. elicits some of the album’s strongest reactions — if you’re paying attention, anyway. On “Fire & Earth Interlude,” he invites female spoken word artist Ernestine Johnson Morrison to say the names of black men and women killed by police, advocate for black-owned businesses, and offer a rejoinder to the gynecological fixations of Cardi Bs and Megan Thee Stallions of today’s music industry, suggesting they need to return to the proto-wokeness of Queen Latifah’s “U.N.I.T.Y.” It’s a reasonable observation at a time when there’s more focus than ever on the empowerment and self-actualization of women, especially in media, but it comes 13 tracks after T.I. raps “She suck it ’til it hard, then she squat there,” and after more than a few songs from his discography like “No Mediocre” that catalogue his deal-breakers to “fuck[ing] bad bitches.” Is this language openly hypocritical? Surely he shares some responsibility for this music’s female objectification. The question that lingers tantalizingly is whether these are considerations T.I. makes at all, or if the justification is simply “I contain multitudes.”

As an artist (much less a father) who publicly professed that he attends his daughter’s doctor visits to ensure her virginity remains intact, and was forced to apologize in 2016 after suggesting that Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be president because “women make rash decisions emotionally,” the answer may or may not surprise you. But there are few rappers working today more eager to investigate, pursue and amplify that complexity in their work as T.I. does, and his 11th album showcases his success — and failure — in trying to synchronize those different instincts. A skillful balance of old and new school musical sentiments combined with precisely the kind of growth that keeps an artist’s fans engaged (and learning right along with him), “The L.I.B.R.A.” adds up to one of the year’s most impressive efforts, and proves that wrong or right, moving butts or provoking thought, T.I. is one of the most vital rappers working today. 

“The L.I.B.R.A.” releases Oct. 16 on Apple Music.