Album Review: Repeat Repeat Repeat by Paul Wall & Termanology
Paul Wall and Termanology’s third album together is a hustle record about debt, and both men rap better here when they’re saying who they owe than when they’re counting what they have.
Paul Wall is after the kind of money that makes you question your fate; he wants to asset-manage his mother’s rewards. He mentions both of those feats on “Three-Peat” in the very next line. Termanology claims never to have sold his soul but to have struck it rich with poetry. You can plan all you want; you can set goals, but in the end, God, as ever, runs the show. Both men have built careers discussing work, and on Repeat Repeat Repeat, the work is what is always owed.
Wall is rummaging through the trash, searching for his treasure on “Catch Me If You Can,” and it’s all getting too expensive to be the boss, and most people can’t afford to be the boss. “A closed fist don’t get bread, I need the chips/And a closed mouth don’t get fed, you get the gist,” he raps on “Back In Paris.” Wall also enjoys a rhyme he can ride for several bars. His bars on “Feeling” hold down one rhyme sonically every bar, from working that wheel to ice on the grill to flipping the kale. When he’s chasing the rhyme and not an endpoint, the bars dilate.
Termanology new crib on Chasing Gold has fresh paint, a fireplace, plaques on the wall over every door, a hundred-inch screen, and then he tells you what he paid for it. He sold the dro young, sold the lean, the white, the green, and everything more powerful than caffeine, and he bought himself a Benz at eighteen. He always knew he‘d make it, he says, even at 16. On “Stoned Island,” he’s pushing Stone Island on an island of stone, putting up stats like Jeter and coming with gat lines like Peter and vowing never to put filler into the frames of a verse, and on “Back In Paris” he takes three suppositories filled with champagne from his flute to the Louvre, where an edible from Amsterdam is fucking him up and the Mona Lisa keeps watching him, and then he‘s back out on the block planning a trip back for Fashion Week.
Bun B shows up on “Feeling,” just paid his dues in this still-growing business not intended to take an “L,” loss, that is. Nothing was the deal, Air Maxes on a mountaintop the size of the salad you made, then he’s the gun gift that you won’t get on the 25th of December. Best song on the album, and neither of the main MCs topped his verse. Le$ carries lighter on “Catch Me If You Can,” turning pieces of a car down a frame, replacing each bolt and washer, putting it back on the wheels, and setting it aside as a one-of-a-kind winning sculpture. He rose from 84th to triple golds.
Wall describes happiness as a slippery fish constantly losing its grip on “Blessings.” He encourages you to make your money and stop moaning about the crust, forewarns that taking your eyes off your brother can lead to instant self-destruction, and concedes that life is hard. But at least someone, somewhere, is worse off, so you better dust yourself off and adapt. Termanology declares his undying love for his style of putting on clothes but can’t let his money slow down his getting debonair about the Joneses, and that all exists in your dark till it comes into the light. Masspike Miles makes the catchy hook with a grin in front and the pain in the corners of his eyes.
The hook on “Make Me Feel,” done by Termanology, is the drink and the dank and very little past them, and Paul Wall‘s verse underneath keeps going after the idea is spent. “You Believe In You” is moderately dull, with Kim Davis singing about rainy days over uplifting praise anyone could have written. Termanology recognizes the problem himself: “I aware this ain’t my most complex lyrical rhyme.” His verse gets better when he gets concrete, remembering 1999, cassette tapes, and records you could buy before iTunes and stream on DSPs. Wais P maneuvers like a piece on “Chasing Gold,” summing coke, baking soda, and water. Grammy-nominated, with the Glock and Paul Wall, pulls up in an 84 with the bucket seats, first ballot, unanimous, while Termanology is topped off with gold rings sprawling his hand and wrists.
He then grabs the title track and tells another plaque does nothing for him. Sure, the recognition is nice, but when off stage, there’s nothing to show for being fearless, and as he described it, “It ain’t like I’m celebrating for my hard work.” He describes himself as a functioning alcoholic who receives the dollars anyway. Paul Wall grabs the back half, cruising down 249, listening to the voices in his head telling him to do more, and this is his one firm boundary: if you’re broke, you're alright, but if you’re lazy, then he’s gone. He used to play on the bench, and now he’s at the forefront in prime time.
On “Trill On Top,” Wall claims that his best friend stole from him and then denied it, even though the video was right there. The fake ones say that they are real but get dipped when each is gone. Whenever they were rolling, another one of their crew was doing time. Finally, he figures out what they all had in common. He asks who was first, the snake or the rat. It goes to show they were both. He says their biggest enemy came from their block, which he says he never saw coming. Termanology discusses that some of his friends told him lies, and other friends told him the truth. Looking back on their actions in Roman times, he figures the liars would have been hung, persecuted, prosecuted, hogtied, and muffled (appeared in movies). Then he tells them they dug their grave and brought the shovel.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Feeling,” “Chasing Gold,” “Trill On Top”