Ludacris: Chicken n Beer

Reviewed by REBECCA BARRY

Herald rating: * * *

Ludacris was an unlikely star when he and his big hair turned up on the hip-hop scene in 2000 but he has since sold three million albums.

His goofy partial parody of bling-bling culture made him as interesting as the ever-changing speed of his rhymes but he was just hard enough to be taken seriously.

On his third album he gets to the politically incorrect fodder without wasting a breath, this time with references to women's sanitary products and the bodily dysfunctions associated with eating too many prunes.

When he's not denouncing the elderly, the short or the big-booty-ed there are moments of pure laidback, southern-fried brilliance, whether it's the soul-fed Hard Times or the cruisy, Snoop Dogg narrative on Hoes in My Room or club-banger Stand Up, produced by the much-touted Kanye West.

At times the adolescent toilet humour, gangster swagger and big lazy beats wear thin but you can't help but admire this from Hip-Hop Quotables: "One of mini me's shoes got more soul than you".

Label: Def Jam