Hustle & Flow needed more of the latter and less of the former. However, you simply don't want your lead actor, even one as talented as Terence Howard, carrying your film and your soundtrack. Anybody who played little league is familiar with that one team who had the big kid who could do it all: hit homeruns and pitch a shut out on the same afternoon. Speaking of missing persons, I know the soundtrack is on the New Deal and TI's Grand Hustle labels, but how is Ludacris acting in the film but not even sneaking a guest appearance anywhere on the soundtrack? The major problem with the music from and inspired by Hustle & Flow is that there are too many cuts that sound like they were created by people with less talent than the fictional main character….who also happens to have some of the best songs on the CD. Now, if we'd had a Dylan sighting, that would've been impressive just to see that marginally talented ragamuffin doing something productive.
But then I remembered that the movie was co-produced by MTV Films and the Making the Band II alum probably had the inside track to this project. I will say I was thrilled to see a track from Young City aka Chopper included in this 20 track set. Djay's "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" sounds great in the trailer and in the film, but is totally exposed as an uninspired track upon further listening. The lead track, "I'm a King" features PSC, TI and Lil Scrappy and is totally forgettable even when you first hear it playing at the end of the film during the credits. It's just not enough when yet another remix of Mike Jones' "Still Tippin" is one of the hottest tracks, even if it is the "It's a Man's World Remix" featuring Nicole Wray. The only problem is tracks like "Tell Me Why" from 8Ball & MJG and "Booty Language" from Juvenile aren't their best efforts. The movie is set in Memphis so of course you hear from Southern acts like Trillville, Webbie, Juvenile and Al Kapone.
After this however, the soundtrack falls flat with too many songs that sound too similar to be worthy of your full attention. Check the film and you'll hear the alternate, radio-unfriendly, names for this track. The menacing "hornish" melody and Dirty South bounce make this an instant banger. Only because there's an extended scene in the movie that shows the creative process behind "Whoop That Trick", does this track grab my attention on the soundtrack. He doesn't have the sharp seasoned voice of an MC who's been at it for years but I give a ton of credit to him doing his own "hip hop stunts" and it's an ironic twist to see a classically trained actor adding rapping to his resume, instead of the other way around. You can read the movie review to get a feel for Howard's performance as the pimp-turned-rapper but the self-trained keyboardist and Chemical Engineer performs all of his own raps in both the movie and the soundtrack. Also, it's an interesting twist that Terence Howard, as Djay, performs three songs in the movie and those same songs show up on the CD, unedited in all of their glory. Many of Djay's best lines are delivered out of the order in which they occured in the movie but it works well on the CD. The dialogue excerpts and skits from the movie are some of the brightest spots of the CD as you give it a straight listen through. A version of this story is going on right now all across the country and many of the artists on the soundtrack have lived, are living or know a hell of a lot about the struggle of Terence Howard's character, Djay, in Hustle & Flow. The movie is about a pimp hanging onto the bottom rung as he stays half a step out of poverty while trying to make his big score in the hip hop music game. Checking out the movie Hustle & Flow should almost be required before throwing in the CD that's "from and inspired by" the film.