When it comes to the dirty south the sunshine state may have the lengthiest resume of all the down bottom hoods. From Luke and 2 Live Crew’s raunchy bass music in the late 80′s and early 90′s to Trick Daddy and Rick Ross’ machine gun rap of recent Florida has put it down in a major way. Somewhere in between those aforementioned artist lies an up until now underground phenom by the name of Granddaddy Souf. Not much is known about Mr. Souf outside of his Orlando hometown but with his latest and first national release Chasing My Dream he’s destined to be a mainstay. Aligned with Steve Rifkind’s SRC imprint his chase just might be over!

The Oralndo native kicks the album off with the auto-biographical “Intro” then swiftly runs down his struggles in the rap game on the humble Jo Da CEO produced title track. Although “Deputy Dope Boy” doesn’t shed any new light on the sport of snitching Grandaddy Souf does a good enough job of adding an extra twist to the biggest no-no in the rap world. As a serious artist Souf shows he can break away from the tough talk to ball for a minute on the Nox helmed “Big Boy Shit”. In keeping up with a diverse subject matter Souf devotes x-rated tracks like “Fun Girl” and “Keep Em Coming Back” to the ladies. For those who have the misperception that Orlando is all about Disney World Souf sets the record straight about his hometown on the sinister “Da O”. Producer Tha Nox comes around for his umpteenth credit on the album with the smoked out blunt rolling anthem “Blowing Big”. On “Fuck Da Law” Tha Nox tweaks his sound some by infusing a crystal clear electric guitar riff on the antagonizing cut. Granddady Souf spits his realest words on “Gospel” where he speaks on everything from Russell Simmons’ political views to George W. Bush’s weapons of mass destruction and everything in between over Dale Babb’s soothing production.

Overall Chasing My Dream is a very well scripted collection but just like any other modern rap album it has its flaws. Fortunately for Grandaddy Souf his biggest low point has to be his repetitiveness from time to time. Some of the tracks are unoriginal in subject matter but the excellent production makes up for what’s lacking. The bottom line is that Chasing My Dream will go down as one of the best slept on albums of 2007 thanks to its deep-rooted southern nature!