Three alcohol-based numbers, two of which are highlights ("Bartender" featuring Akon and "Buy U a Drank" with Yung Joc) and one that's just filler ("Tipsy"), could have been spread across three albums instead of dropped on one. These vibrant touches and bold moments make the album worth pulling for, but T-Pain's ongoing issue with beating good ideas to death has now extended to just fair ideas. As far as "mature," there's a gripping interlude four tracks in, "I Got It" (the "it" being HIV), and then the ambitious "Suicide," which has more depth and feeling than expected. Take the futuristic reggae number "Shottas" or the busy "Church," which dares the listener to hang onto its hectic beat.
Problem is, T-Pain has a long way to go before he gets anywhere close to Kels' "I Believe I Can Fly." Instead he's got a fat sack of "Thoia Thoing"s with hooks, slick sounds, and shameless lyrics along with the occasionally crafty production twist. Kelly and his juggling of the sublime and ridiculous. The singer, rapper, writer, producer, voicebox abuser, and favorite target of many hip-hop fans is one of the few who could put an effervescent ode to a jiggly stomach ("Some people like booty/And ain't nothing wrong with that/Ain't nothing more groovy/Than when that stomach moving") on an album that dare pimp the word "mature." "Stomach" is not an empowering anthem for thick women, and when the world "nut" appears as a verb, it's easy to remember R. From its title to its more poignant numbers, T-Pain's Epiphany wears the tag line "more mature album" proudly, which it is, sort of, half of the time.
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