We Listened To The Flo Rida Discography

Flo Rida is barely a human being. He has an improbably long list of hit singles to his name, but he is completely irrelevant in any cultural sphere. There is no such thing as a “hardcore Flo Rida fan;” that would imply that Mr. Rida is an empty vessel void of any remote shred of personality. He is without quirk, eccentricity, or even a funny hat. Where Sean Kingston got to play up the whole “Jamaican” thing or Soulja Boy had a dance and wrote his name on his sunglasses, Flo Rida is a depressing blank slate for extremely cynical songwriters who treat pop as a weird algebra equation. It’s actually kind of sad. Despite being the face of modern rap radio, Flo Rida has no artistic definition. He actually kinda reminds me of the Brill Building back in the ‘60s, where Phil Specter would mix and match the members of his girl groups depending on the song he was recording. Flo Rida will always follow the numbers.

The fact that Flo Rida seems to have absolutely no control over his life has made him a very fascinating figure to me. Ostensibly the guy born Tramar Dillard wanted to make actual art at one point in his life; I’d like to think he didn’t expect to be responsible for “Whistle” six years into a career. He actually does release albums, which is pretty crazy, because with his place in the record industry releasing albums seems kind of pointless.

I refuse to believe that Flo Rida never had any musical vision throughout his life. Frankly that seems impossible. So I took it upon myself to listen to all of his albums and figure out who exactly Flo Rida the artist is. I have now listened to 45 Flo Rida songs in the last 3 hours; I must’ve learned something, right?

Mail on Sunday (2008)
Mail on Sunday is a very silly name for a rap album, though not necessarily a silly name for a Jimmy Buffett album. If Mail on Sunday was the name for a series of colorless, decontextualized Flo Rida club filler, which would be perfectly suitable. But that’s not what this is; Flo Rida’s first album is actually a totally mediocre attempt at a pop-rap album, but pushed out with a lot of heart. Seriously, Flo Rida is actually rapping here, about actual rap things. He talks about girls, tires, body parts, and selling drugs – all in predictably watered-down fashion, but it vaguely resembles a trajectory. The craziest curveball is “Still Missin” which is a straight-up album track. It mostly consists of possessive, misogynistic, bewilderingly over-emotive bullshit (the hook is literally just “my ho still missin” and at one point he rhymes that with “shoulda kept her in the kitchen”) but it’s absolutely not a club joint. Mail on Sunday is thoroughbred rap album, and you certainly get a sense of what Flo Rida is all about. Sure there’s nothing remotely unique here, but it also sounds like it came from a human being.

R.O.O.T.S. (2009)
Flo Rida was probably feeling pretty good in 2009. He was officially a famous rapper, and “Right Round” was currently destroying any competition in sight. I guess you can forgive the dude for calling the first song on his sophomore record “Finally Here.” R.O.O.T.S. is a very triumphant album, the sort of the thing you would expect from a guy who has secured his notoriety. The title track has Flo Rida rapping very adamantly about how he’ll never forget where he came from, which might be the most played-out hip-hop cliché of all time. Mostly R.O.O.T.S. is just like Mail on Sunday, except without the faint scent of aspiration. He’s not rapping about tires or selling drugs, he’s rapping about doing ecstasy. At least four of these songs take place in a strip club. It’s actually kind of impressive that Flo Rida can spend 13 tracks saying absolutely nothing.

Only One Flo [Part 1] (2010)
Mail on Sunday was 53 minutes long. R.O.O.T.S. was 51 minutes long. Only One Flo has eight songs in 27 minutes. If you could identify the moment where Flo Rida officially gave up, it’s probably the moment on “Club Can’t Handle Me” where he says “I see you D-Guetta!” This is a man who grew up wanting to be a rapper, and here he was, essentially rewriting “A Whole New World” with a 44-year old French DJ. Only One Flo has absolutely no reason to exist, and apparently nobody has ever heard it considering it peaked at 107. There’s something weirdly engaging about listening to a record constructed for the sole purpose of moving the news cycle. Only One Flo sounds like the coldly deconstructed ingredients of a 21st century pop presence. The icy club-banger “On and On,” the ballad “Come With Me,” the shitty metaphor “Respirator” and several tons of stadium-house cheese. Part of me wonders if Flo Rida is self-aware, or if he honestly thinks he is keeping it real. I mean, it wasn’t too long ago he was going full street with Rick Ross. But Flo Rida probably has way too much money to worry about that. I shudder to think what Flo Rida has in store for Only One Flo [Part 2].

Wild Ones (2012)
I won’t spend too much time talking about Wild Ones, because it’s basically just Only One Flo [Part 1] but even cornier, and also interrupting the continuity of the storied Only One Flo series. It marks the final transformation of a once serious, tough-guy rapper into a ‘90s rave diva. We’re talking about an album that features “Wild Ones,” “I Cry,” “Sweet Spot,” “Whistle,” and “Good Feeling” as five of its eight tracks, and “Good Feeling” is literally just an Avicii song that Flo Rida raps over. Seriously just look at that album art. Cosmic hippy Flo Rida standing defiantly in the void. The fact that he still has the Florida silhouette in his logo feels hilariously anachronistic. If Flo Rida has taught me anything it’s that the machinery of the 21st century music industry can move in fast and severe ways. Just a few years ago Flo Rida was a struggling rapper working on his point of view and rhyme-scheme. For as bad as Mail on Sunday is, you do hear a guy who really is trying his hardest. Flo Rida did not seem marked for stardom, but now he’s responsible for more hits than anyone could’ve ever imagined. All that success has forced him to sacrifice any true characteristic he wanted to share. He has become Slurms Mackenzie. I wonder if he feels like he won.

@luke_winkie