Ruff Ryders
2006
Time Is Money (Explicit)
About This Album
While the title became more and more ironic with every pushed-back release date, Styles P's long-delayed Time Is Money feels immediate, like an excellent mixtape with extremely high production values, and certainly not what you'd expect from a "four years in the making" album. This vital slab of street music pops from the get-go with "G-Joint," a vicious stab at rival gangs -- G-Unit included -- with producer Huu Banga crunching a sample of Asia's "Only Time Will Tell" into an amazingly fresh loop. Old-school soul -- with Talib Kweli and Gerald LeVert stopping by for some worthwhile collaborations -- dominates the next three cuts, then Styles' old crew the LOX appear and the radio-friendly section of the album begins. T.I.'s favorite Crystal Waters loop is featured on "Favorite Drug" and Akon adds his usual hooks and swagger to "Can You Believe It," and while it's been a standard exercise in how to make a solid thug album up to this point, "I'm Black" is a different story altogether. As Time Is Money was seeing release, blogs were all over the track claiming radio wouldn't touch it, then radio claimed they weren't shipped it.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,7,9 and 10)

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