“In 50 years, it’ll be a curious thing that the best-selling digital single of all time once belonged to Flo Rida and that the song, “Low,” powered the phones of hip-hop heads and sorority girls for months and months. “Low” is a well-deserved monster, and Flo Rida’s relatively long-in-coming debut sports precisely all the ingredients required of a rapper these days: production that sounds like money, exuberant materialism, several verses by Lil’ Wayne and a singular desire to keep people’s attention for very brief periods of time. Flo Rida’s flow is an engaging/ringy-dingy/he-sounds-like-Nelly thing. But his hooks can be rock-solid (“Ack Like You Know”) and his interest in gleaming synthesizerism (opener “American Superstar” comes into “Tubular Bells” territory, really) helps set him off from the legions of rappers clawing over each other to break out of the South. —Jeff Vrabel”
