Bubba Sparxxx - Dark Days, Bright Nights

Since the cover artwork for Dark Days, Bright Nights is filled to overload with white trash iconography, one gets an immediate sense of straight-outta-nowhere Bubba Sparxxx's persona. He may be a fat, country redneck with something to prove, but does the man have skills? Er, not really. He's not especially charismatic; his rhyme flow is average at best and sorely lacking in lyrical content. What does Sparxxx have going for him? Well, to paraphrase Tha Liks, "It's the beats baby, it's the beats." Production wizard Timbaland, the ever-innovative Organized Noize, and some talented newcomers have laid out a series of tracks dope enough for a full-length instrumental album. Such a fertile landscape deserves to be inhabited by an MC of higher caliber. --Rebecca Levine Amazon.com

Still a Favorite

Over four years later this CD still sounds great to me. Bubba has plenty of talent and Timbaland makes it work well for him. I keep this CD handy and bump it loud & often in my car. It will hold me over alright until his new album comes out. December 10, 2005

This CD wore on me

After a fairly hot single and big Timbaland hype, I bought this disc and was happy with it for a couple of weeks. Then it got old, stale and boring. I can hardly listen to it any more, where other cd's just seem to get better with age.

If you're looking for GREAT Southern Hip Hop, grab some old-school Outkast (Southernplayalistic or ATLiens), the first Nappy Roots album (I haven't heard enough of the second album to have an opinion), or even get some southern flavor from Devin the Dude ("the Dude" is better than "Trying to Live") or Scarface. This CD was mediocre at best, but still better than a lot of the other crap that's out there, hence the 3 stars. January 28, 2004

You don't know what you're missin'...

For everyone that doesn't have this album, I truly feel for you. It's a virtual lesson on what music should be- original, fresh and entertaining. It's a graphic look into the life of an artist, raw and gritty with slice of country soul. Every song is tantalizing, like a hot, buttered biscuit of musical style and rhyme. Shame on the naysayers that pawn Bubba Sparxxx off as a piece of 'White Trash' with an album. One man's trash is another man's treasure... October 8, 2003

A DONT BUY ALBUM

Bubba is ok and tight beats but his voice kills the whole cd. lots of other rappers rep the south but he sound like a western farm boy to much.Ugly is the best song so get the ugly single but dont waste your money on like only 3 songs that are good. I respect any white rap.....its not what you look like its just if you got skill. But eminem is the best white rapper and 1 of the best out of everybody.but bubba needs more skill. and how did he get signed??do not buy!! January 20, 2003

Let him sell 50,000,000...

Let's be honest, southern farmboy hip-hop isn't immediately the most appetising prospect. The idea of such a determinedly urban music adopting country manners reeks of novelty; how can the sounds of the porch compete with those of the projects? A dumb joke perpetuated by desperate men in search of a gimmick, surely?

Well, not quite. The entrepreneur launching Bubba Sparxxx is none other than Timbaland, the world's most creative producer. Sparxxx is the first signing to Timbaland's own label, Beat Club, and the grateful recipient of rhythms that rank alongside Tim's best this year (Missy's 'Get Ur Freak On', Aaliyah's 'We Need A Resolution', Jay-Z's 'Hola Hovito'). So far, so fine.

Oh, and there's the rapper himself. Bubba Sparxxx is, in fact, a 24-year-old former school gridiron star called Warren Anderson Mathis. Mathis - based in Athens, Georgia - is emphatically not Beat Club's token white boy for the Eminem market. Sure, he exaggerates the good ol' southern boy persona at times, but there's no doubting his skills as a rapper.

'Dark Days, Bright Nights', then, is a late challenger for rap debut of the year. You've doubtless heard the invigoratingly silly, Missy-sampling single 'Ugly' by now. What's most impressive is the way Sparxxx and his producers maintain that imaginative party atmosphere throughout. Obviously, Tim's contributions (nearly half of the album) are the most striking, as he threads acoustic guitars through his trademark eastern-tinged beats on 'Open Wide' and the horse-sampling 'Bubba Talk', or unleashes the kind of twanging funk on 'Lovely' that made Missy's 'Dog N' Heat' so thrilling.

Nevertheless, Atlantan Shannon Houchins' work stands its ground well, and there's an outstanding dirty south groove on 'All The Same' courtesy of Outkast's production team, Organized Noise. Eminem comparisons are rarely apposite save, perhaps, Bubba's idea of distributing sheets of acid with the album on 'Infected'. But he's a smart, funny character in his own right, and Beat Club couldn't have hoped for a more auspicious launch. January 13, 2003

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