Weekend At Burnie's (Deluxe Version)

How dependable can a rapper be if he spends most of his time poolside or airborne, entertaining affairs with married women and smoking copious amounts of weed? Six albums and a string of mixtapes since leaving Young Money, with two or three more albums slated for release at the end of 2011, Curren$y might actually be one of the hardest working artists around, relied upon again and again for churning out consistent albums full of substance and style. Recently, he’s moved from independent distribution to Dame Dash’s DD172 Roc-a-fella imprint to a deal with Warner Bros., changing little about himself in the process, continuing to dispatch one laid-back boast after another.

Weekend at Burnie’s feels like a summer interlude. The production is mostly helmed by the duo of Monsta Beatz, who Curren$y’s worked with on both Pilot Talk albums. Here, the two New Orleans beatmakers have carte blanche to weave slow-burning tracks reminiscent of classic G-funk. Mobb Deep’s Havoc contributes to the stellar “She Don’t Want a Man,” but the album is mostly a two-man project. Curren$y plies his craft on slow burners like the heady and dense “Televised,” where the rapper employs his southern drawl to itemize… read more »