Trilla
Trilla is the second studio album by American rapper Rick Ross. It was released on March 11, 2008, by Slip-n-Slide Records, Def Jam South Recordings and Poe Boy Entertainment. Production was handled by The Runners, J. R. Rotem, Drumma Boy, DJ Toomp, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, DJ Nasty & LVM, Blac Elvis, J Rock, Mannie Fresh, Los Vegaz and Bink!. It features guest appearances from R. Kelly, T-Pain, Trey Songz, Young Jeezy, Trick Daddy, Nelly, Brisco, Triple C's, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Avery Storm. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 198,000 copies in the first week. The album was a certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). To date, the album has sold 700,000 copies in the United States. Background On August 17, 2007, Rick Ross announced that the album would be released on November 11, 2007. However, he later announced that the album would be released on December 18, 2007, until it was pushed back to February 19, 2008. In November 2007, in an interview with HipHopDX, Rick Ross spoke about who would be featured on the album, saying: "Most definitely. I wanted to step everything up. That’s why I reached out to R. Kelly for the first single. I got Marsha from Floetry to come in and help get the females on my team. She did a lot of work with Michael Jackson. When I was working with her, I thought about that. We laughed, we chopped it up, we just had fun. We put together some real big records. This album is going to be much better than Port of Miami and possibly the best album of the year." In March 2008, in an interview with AllHipHop, he spoke about where the album title came from, saying: "Trill is a term we been using down south. I'm sure you heard Bun B use it. Pimp C been saying that since forever. You know in the Texas/Florida panhandle, that's what we say. And I just put my twist and my spin on it. I kind of took a little from Michael Jackson's Thriller album and put that on mines and that's how we came up with Trilla. Shout out to Bun B. That's my uncle in the game." Singles On October 16, 2007, the album's lead single, "Speedin'" featuring R. Kelly, was released. On December 14, 2007, the music video was released for "Speedin'" featuring R. Kelly. On February 14, 2008, the album's second single, "The Boss" featuring T-Pain, was released. On February 21, 2008, the music video was released for "The Boss" featuring T-Pain. On March 25, 2008, the album's third single, "Here I Am" featuring Nelly and Avery Storm, was released. On May 23, 2008, the music video was released for "Here I Am" featuring Nelly and Avery Storm. Critical reception Trilla was met with generally mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an