Standard
1. Intro
2. Rich Is Gangsta
3. Drug Dealer's Dream
4. Shots Fired
5. Nobody
6. The Devil Is A Lie (feat. JAY Z)
7. Mafia Music III (feat. Sizzla & Mavado)
8. War Ready (feat. Jeezy)
9. What A Shame
10. Supreme
11. BLK & WHT
12. Dope bytch Skit
13. In Vein (feat. The Weeknd)
14. Sanctified (feat. Kanye West & Big Sean)
15. Walkin On Air (feat. Meek Mill)
16. Thug Cry (feat. Lil Wayne)
Deluxe
1. Blessing In Disguise (feat. Scarface & Z-Ro)
2. Paradise Lost
3. You Know I Got It (Reprise)
I think Mastermind album had two major problems:
1. The album, specifically the back half, was not cohesive at all. Albums that aren't cohesive don't tend to age as well. The problem with this is that back half is where them more notable songs were. Thug Cry, Sanctified, Walkin on Air and In Vein were basically the album's most popular songs.
2. That trash Hood Billionaire album killed its hype. It's hard believe he released two albums the same year only 8 months apart. Some songs on Mastermind like Thug Cry and Sanctified were still getting decent play. For an artist so caught up in brand quality, Hood Billionaire comes off as a quality control defect that made past work look worse and "cheaper" in retrospect.
That said I think there's a lot to like here. Especially the deluxe tracks. I'm sure Ross got a big payday for giving Jay You Know I Got It but if he could've kept that to himself, that's a career making BMF-tier hit for him. Blessing in Disguise still gets to play to this day for me and this is one of his best verses:
[Verse 2: Rick Ross]
Cracks in the wall, standing in the puddle
Sunny south Florida, a cold motherfukker
Ready for a war,barely wanna talk
Ballys on, my nikka, as they walking back and forth
Makes you wanna hustle, take care of my brothers
Raymond passed away, here's something for his mother
It never is enough, trying to show her that I love him
We were fishing buddies,breed the dog, split the puppies
Pictures on the wall, bytches we done raw
nikkas getting robbed, the only shyt that we can solve
We all wanna get it, ball for a minute
Accept collect calls, tell our dawgs that we did it
Plenty money orders, that what uncle Kenny taught us
Keep your face clean when you're out here bending corners
Always keep in mind, you fall in love a thousand times
Regardless what we went through, I'm still right here by your side
Artificial homies, worse than the agents
When you parking all your cars, they wanna know the payments
Rose petals dripping on the casket
Baby boy done grew into a b*stard
On that lean, you know I fukk her fantastic
Work white as Rita Ora in that plastic
Took shots, shed tears, that's war
Bust bottles on yachts, stand tall
Catch a case, don't talk, that's raw
Scarface, Rick Ross: big boys
Big boys, Scarface, Rozay, we big boys
The first half of the album doesn't really have any obvious hits but MM3, DDD and RIG are all good. The middle of the album had some hyped collabs with Jay and Jeezy that I feel both disappointed. Not bad songs, but when people saw the track list they were like
and they turned out to be 
. Then the last four songs as mentioned earlier were all huge songs but didn't really fit together at all and you kind of get the impression Ross had a list of collaborators he wanted to squeeze in. That didn't really ever seem the case on past albums not including PoM. The only downright bad song IMO is Black & White, mostly due to the weird ass hook. Nobody is a good cover song, and although I know at the time people were really upset Ross covered it, I think it was a really good fit and if anyone is to cover a BIG song, it should be Ross.
Anyway, good album. Had too many collabs and should've had the bonus tracks along with some pre-release songs (Oyster Perpetual) on the normal album. You could re-arrange the tracklist and make a 13-15 song near classic IMO. The album is at 400K so not a horrible seller either. That HB album should've never existed though.
Here's how I have the album arranged on my phone:
1. Thug Cry
2. Rich is Gangsta
3. Drug Dealers Dream
4. Nobody
5. Maybach Music 3
6. You Know I Got It
7. The Devil is a Lie
8. What a Shame
9. Supreme
10. In Vein
11.Sanctified
12. Paradise Lost
13. Oyster Perpetual
14. Walkin on Air
15. Blessing in Disguise
That's a solid 4/5.
Here's some songs cuz why not
1. Intro
2. Rich Is Gangsta
3. Drug Dealer's Dream
4. Shots Fired
5. Nobody
6. The Devil Is A Lie (feat. JAY Z)
7. Mafia Music III (feat. Sizzla & Mavado)
8. War Ready (feat. Jeezy)
9. What A Shame
10. Supreme
11. BLK & WHT
12. Dope bytch Skit
13. In Vein (feat. The Weeknd)
14. Sanctified (feat. Kanye West & Big Sean)
15. Walkin On Air (feat. Meek Mill)
16. Thug Cry (feat. Lil Wayne)
Deluxe
1. Blessing In Disguise (feat. Scarface & Z-Ro)
2. Paradise Lost
3. You Know I Got It (Reprise)
I think Mastermind album had two major problems:
1. The album, specifically the back half, was not cohesive at all. Albums that aren't cohesive don't tend to age as well. The problem with this is that back half is where them more notable songs were. Thug Cry, Sanctified, Walkin on Air and In Vein were basically the album's most popular songs.
2. That trash Hood Billionaire album killed its hype. It's hard believe he released two albums the same year only 8 months apart. Some songs on Mastermind like Thug Cry and Sanctified were still getting decent play. For an artist so caught up in brand quality, Hood Billionaire comes off as a quality control defect that made past work look worse and "cheaper" in retrospect.
That said I think there's a lot to like here. Especially the deluxe tracks. I'm sure Ross got a big payday for giving Jay You Know I Got It but if he could've kept that to himself, that's a career making BMF-tier hit for him. Blessing in Disguise still gets to play to this day for me and this is one of his best verses:
[Verse 2: Rick Ross]
Cracks in the wall, standing in the puddle
Sunny south Florida, a cold motherfukker
Ready for a war,barely wanna talk
Ballys on, my nikka, as they walking back and forth
Makes you wanna hustle, take care of my brothers
Raymond passed away, here's something for his mother
It never is enough, trying to show her that I love him
We were fishing buddies,breed the dog, split the puppies
Pictures on the wall, bytches we done raw
nikkas getting robbed, the only shyt that we can solve
We all wanna get it, ball for a minute
Accept collect calls, tell our dawgs that we did it
Plenty money orders, that what uncle Kenny taught us
Keep your face clean when you're out here bending corners
Always keep in mind, you fall in love a thousand times
Regardless what we went through, I'm still right here by your side
Artificial homies, worse than the agents
When you parking all your cars, they wanna know the payments
Rose petals dripping on the casket
Baby boy done grew into a b*stard
On that lean, you know I fukk her fantastic
Work white as Rita Ora in that plastic
Took shots, shed tears, that's war
Bust bottles on yachts, stand tall
Catch a case, don't talk, that's raw
Scarface, Rick Ross: big boys
Big boys, Scarface, Rozay, we big boys
The first half of the album doesn't really have any obvious hits but MM3, DDD and RIG are all good. The middle of the album had some hyped collabs with Jay and Jeezy that I feel both disappointed. Not bad songs, but when people saw the track list they were like
and they turned out to be . Then the last four songs as mentioned earlier were all huge songs but didn't really fit together at all and you kind of get the impression Ross had a list of collaborators he wanted to squeeze in. That didn't really ever seem the case on past albums not including PoM. The only downright bad song IMO is Black & White, mostly due to the weird ass hook. Nobody is a good cover song, and although I know at the time people were really upset Ross covered it, I think it was a really good fit and if anyone is to cover a BIG song, it should be Ross.Anyway, good album. Had too many collabs and should've had the bonus tracks along with some pre-release songs (Oyster Perpetual) on the normal album. You could re-arrange the tracklist and make a 13-15 song near classic IMO. The album is at 400K so not a horrible seller either. That HB album should've never existed though.
Here's how I have the album arranged on my phone:
1. Thug Cry
2. Rich is Gangsta
3. Drug Dealers Dream
4. Nobody
5. Maybach Music 3
6. You Know I Got It
7. The Devil is a Lie
8. What a Shame
9. Supreme
10. In Vein
11.Sanctified
12. Paradise Lost
13. Oyster Perpetual
14. Walkin on Air
15. Blessing in Disguise
That's a solid 4/5.
Here's some songs cuz why not
