Straight Outta Cashville

Straight Outta Cashville is the debut solo studio album by American rapper Young Buck. It was released on August 24, 2004 via G-Unit/Interscope Records. The album's title alludes to the N.W.A's 1988 album Straight Outta Compton and is a neologism for the artist's hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.

Recording sessions took place at Record One in Los Angeles, Soundstage Studios and Quad Studios in Nashville, The Big House in Farmington, Sony Music Studios in New York, Circle House Studios in Miami and Platinum Recordings in Atlanta.

Production was handled by DJ Paul, Dre & Vidal, Juicy J, Needlz, Sha Money XL, Chad Beat, Crown, Diverse, Doug Wilson, Felony Muzik, Kon Artis, Lil' Jon, Midi Mafia, Red Spyda and Black Jeruz, with Klasic and Sean C serving as co-producers.

It features guest appearances from his fellow G-Unit groupmates 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and The Game, as well as D-Tay, David Banner, Kon Artis, Lil' Flip, Ludacris and Stat Quo.

Promotion
The album was supported with two singles, "Let Me In" and "Shorty Wanna Ride", and two promotional singles, "Stomp" and "Look at Me Now" b/w "Bonafide Hustler".

Its lead single, Needlz-produced "Let Me In" featuring additional vocals by 50 Cent, was released prior to the album, on July 2, 2004. The song peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 15 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and number 11 on the Hot Rap Songs in the United States, number 62 on the UK singles chart and number 12 on the Hip Hop and R&B Singles Chart in the United Kingdom, number 70 on the ARIA Top 100 Singles Chart and number 16 on the ARIA Urban Singles Chart, and number 94 in Germany. An accompanying music video was directed by Jessy Terrero.

Its second single, Lil' Jon-produced "Shorty Wanna Ride", was released two days following the album. It reached number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 8 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and number 6 on the Hot Rap Songs in the US, and has become Young Buck's highest-charting song. An accompanying music video starring Malinda Williams, which was directed by Gil Green, was inspired by the film Natural Born Killers.

The song "Stomp", the original version of which featured two Atlanta-based rappers T.I. and Ludacris, caused misunderstandings from the aforementioned guests on the track. The phrase "Me gettin' beat down? That's ludicrous" from T.I.'s verse heated up the tensions between the two as Buck perceived the line as a diss towards Luda. D-Tay could serve as a replacement for T.I. on the track, but The Game's verse ended up making it onto the album version.

The music video for promotional single "Look At Me Now/Bonafide Hustler" was directed by The Saline Project.

Straight Outta Cashville received minimal promotion after November 2004 as result of the Vibe Awards stabbing incident, in which Buck was arrested for an assault. Though the case was eventually dropped, four months had passed by since Buck himself had been able to promote the album.

Critical reception
Straight Outta Cashville received generally positive reviews from music critics. Rafael Martinez of Prefix called the record "the best G-Unit release to date", giving praise to the production, featured guests and Buck delivering above-average lyricism from the hip-hop blueprint, concluding that "Cynics will criticize Straight Outta Cashville as another typical G-Unit album, only this time south of the Mason-Dixon line. But Buck is more than just a 50 flunky and can hold down an album on his own. You can’t argue with success: G-Unit is running this". Kelefa Sanneh from The New York Times said, "This album isn't revelatory, but it is convincing, and although Young Buck's subject matter never surprises, the tracks sometimes do". Jon Caramanica, writing for Rolling Stone, praised Buck for lyrically holding his own opposite the featured artists on a solid debut effort, saying that "Straight Outta Cashville is crime rap par excellence – unrepentantly grimy lyrics backed by soulful production". Robert Christgau graded the album as a "dud", indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought".

Commercial performance
In the United States, Straight Outta Ca$hville debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, with sales of 261,000 copies in its first week of release. It also peaked at number two on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number-one on the Top Rap Albums charts. The album was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on January 26, 2005 for selling a million copies in the US.

The album also debuted atop of Canadian Albums Chart. In the United Kingdom, it made it to number 22 on the UK Albums Chart, number 18 on the Scottish Albums Chart and number five on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Albums Chart.

The album did not find much success in Europe, peaking only at No. 41 in the Netherlands, No. 75 in France, No. 86 in Flanders and No. 94 in Switzerland.

Track listing

 * Sample credits
 * Track 6 contains elements from "If You Were My Woman" written by Gloria Jones, Clay McMurray and Pam Sawyer and performed by Latimore.
 * Track 7 contains elements from "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right" written by Homer Banks, Carl Hampton and Raymond Jackson and performed by Bobby "Blue" Bland.
 * Track 9 contains elements from "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" written by Sonny Bono and performed by Nancy Sinatra.
 * Track 10 contains elements from "Smokey Rainclouds" written and performed by Andrey Vinogradov.
 * Track 11 contains elements from "Que Protesten" written by Bernardo Mitnik and Mike Ribas and performed by Chucho Avellanet.
 * Track 14 contains elements from "If It's in You to Do Wrong" written by Albert J. Tribble and George Davis and performed by The Impressions.