Me & My Brother

by Alex HendersonFor a New York-based label, TVT has certainly put out a lot of Dirty South releases -- some of them violent, totally thugged-out gangsta rap, some of them party music. One might wonder why a company with a Manhattan address would be so into the Dirty South; after all, some Northeastern hip-hop heads can be quite provincial and act like they're oblivious to rappers who live below the Mason-Dixon. But then, the folks who run TVT are entrepreneurs, and they obviously realize that the Dirty South market is huge -- and that Southern rappers can make a fortune from the Southern states alone. How well Me & My Brother does in Brooklyn, the Bronx, or Philadelphia is almost irrelevant; this 2003 release is primarily aimed at Dirty South audiences, and the material has the familiar crunk elements -- barking vocals, chanted choruses, and explicit lyrics celebrating the pleasures of sex, decadence, intoxication, and hedonism. Occasionally, the Ying Yang Twins get sociopolitical; the Atlanta-based duo addresses inner-city problems on "Hard" and the rock-edged "Calling All Zones" (which aims to be a regional theme for Atlanta the way that Petey Pablo's "Raise Up" was for North Carolina). But for the most part, Me & My Brother is a party album, and exuberant, hook-filled tunes like "Salt Shaker" (which features fellow Atlanta resident Lil Jon) and the single "Naggin'" are straight-up club-bangers (that is, crunk jams aimed at Southern hip-hop clubs). And even though the Ying Yang Twins aren't terribly original -- countless other Dirty South artists have done this type of thing -- Me & My Brother is a cut above most of the crunk-oriented releases that came out in 2003. The duo is entertaining more often than not, and the jams are generally infectious on this fun and likable, if derivative, effort.