Word of Mouf

Word of Mouf is the third studio album by American rapper Ludacris. It was released through Disturbing tha Peace and Def Jam South on November 27, 2001. It contains four singles: "Rollout (My Business)", "Area Codes", "Move Bitch", and "Saturday (Oooh! Ooooh!)".

Critical reception
Jason Birchmeier of AllMusic called Word of Mouf a "superstar affair that aims for mass appeal with a broad array of different styles" and enjoyed "witty puns and sly innuendoes" displayed in songs such as "Area Codes". However, he felt that "amid all of these various team-ups you do lose a little bit of the sincere, personal edge that had characterized much of Ludacris' debut." Soren Baker of the Chicago Tribune also praised the album's comedic nature, commenting that "Whether he's delivering a punchy one-liner, exaggerating his rhyme flow to a silly extreme or cleverly deploying pop culture references, Ludacris keeps the mood light and festive. Even his skits are funny enough that they could serve as the foundation for a top-tier comedy album."

Robert Christgau stated: "[Ludacris] raps and rhymes with gusto, and I like his Timbaland beat so much I don't want to know how real its Glocks are. Nevertheless, he is or impersonates a no-class pimp motherfucker, and if he never reached one of the nine-year-olds O'Reilly yammers about, he would still be coarsening public discourse. Song after song pumps the pimp theory that all women are whores. Rotate good-humored dance songs in which the best thing you say about female persons is that they crave your tallywhacker and the worst is that you'll murder them if they bother, and you'll change how real human beings of both sexes think and behave. Anyone who claims different is certainly a liar and probably a bully.

Ludacris took part in the second edition of the Anger Management Tour in the summer of 2002. Headlined by Eminem along with support from Papa Roach, Xzibit, X-Ecutioners and Bionic Jive. It was his sole Tour where he toured alongside Rap acts and rock acts in the same package.

Commercial performance
The album debuted at number 3 on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 281,000 copies in the United States, The album was certified 3x Multi-Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on October 31, 2002. As of July 2014, the album has sold over 3,674,000 copies in the United States to date. This is Ludacris' best selling album. It was nominated at the 45th Grammy Awards for Best Rap Album, but lost to The Eminem Show.

Track listing
Notes


 * Samples and interpolations
 * "Coming 2 America" samples "Requiem, 3rd movement (Dies irae)" as performed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and "Symphony No. 9, 'From the New World', 4th movement (Allegro con fuoco)" as performed by Antonín Dvořák (Conductor and orchestra unknown for both)
 * "Rollout (My Business)" contains an interpolation of "Yay Boy" as performed by Africando
 * "She Said" contains an interpolation of "Love in Ya Mouth" as performed by Kilo Ali featuring Big Boi
 * "Area Codes" contains interpolations of "Bitch Betta Have My Money" as performed by AMG, and Cha Cha Slide as performed by DJ Casper
 * "Growing Pains" contains a sample of "I Forgot To Be Your Lover" as performed by William Bell
 * "Saturday (Oooh! Oooh!)" contains a sample of "Off" as performed by Hodges, James, and Smith
 * "Get the Fuck Back" contains an interpolation of "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" as performed by Public Enemy
 * "Welcome to Atlanta" contains an interpolation of "Trans-Europe Express" as performed by Kraftwerk, "Do It Baby" as performed by the Miracles, and "Five Minutes of Funk" as performed by Whodini