Trigga

Mr. Steal Your Girl is up to his old tricks on his sixth album, throughout which he relishes his playboy status more than ever. Trey Songz is far past minding anything other than his pleasure. To quote the great Spice 1, Trigga gots no heart. He couldn't care less about contradicting himself, as he gleefully refers to "hoes" as "triflin'" while boasting about a multitude of behavioral stunts deserving of the same noun and adjective. Speaking of triflin', the album's second line is "I'm taken but I want you." Yet it's less a matter when he also cleverly disputes the logic of the dumbest idiom ("You can't have your cake and eat it") with a falsetto flick of "But ain't that what you supposed to do?" while exploiting its metaphorical flexibility to an R. Kellian level. The week prior to the album's release, four of its songs were already on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. These singles presented only a slight possibility that Trigga is the singer's best release, though "Na Na," a collaboration with hot producer DJ Mustard, is one of his best slow jams, booming and spacious with a dark edge. Another pre-album hit, Soundz production "Foreign" -- present in original form and a delete-able "remix" that adds nasal-as-ever Justin Bieber -- is more representative of the album's essence, comparatively rowdy with compliments paid strictly to physical features. This is, no doubt, one of the most flagrantly lecherous commercial R&B albums of its time. It also has sharp hooks and slick productions to spare. Those who are justifiably opposed to it on principle might find it all the more obnoxious that it comes from a proficient vocalist whose melodicism is almost unrivaled. ~ Andy Kellman