Track Checker: Tela "Tired of Ballin'"

Let me get this out of the way up front: whenever I intend to type the name "Tela" my fingers type the word "teal" (the gross color).

So who is Tela? I don't know. I guess he came up with Eightball &MJG, who are two people that I like, and then he came out with six full length albums. SIX! That's a lot. But I don't know if any of them made any waves.

This song, Tired of Ballin', is off of his first album "Piece of Mind" which I've never even heard of. Have you heard of it? That's great. So why are we taking the time to review this song? Well, that's simple: I'm tired of ballin' too. Very tired of it. And I've never even done it. I don't even know what it is! What is ballin'? I guess we'll find out together when we listen to this song.

But before we dive in, I want to point out the odd placement of this song in Tela's catalog: it's the third song on the first album. And the first song was an intro. So it's really the second song. My point is this: isn't that a little too early to declare that you're tired of ballin'? I mean we hardly know you. It's like meeting someone new and having them just jump right out  with "Boy, you know, I'm tired of soccer." Are you? Did you like soccer? Did you ball, Tela? Were you good at it? We don't know!

Hopefully this song will have some answers:

WAIT! I got tricked! Tela isn't tired of balling at all! The joke is on me!
 

Check out the chorus:

"I'm so tired of ballin' . . .

cuz there's too many snitches in my mix. .

You never hear a balla say nothing like this!"

WHAA?? So the point of this song is that you're not tired of balling? Not only that, you'll NEVER be tired of balling? The fuck? We're three lines into the song and I'm already very confused. Follow me now:

1. Tela names a song "Tired of Ballin'" - implying that he is tired of balling. Plus, in the video for the song, Tela speaks at a "Player's Anonymous Meeting", implying that he is trying to stop being a player.

2. In the chorus of that song Tela says that a Balla would never say that they were tired of ballin.

3. Tela himeself said that he was tired of it (in the title), therefore Tela is not a balla.

4. If Tela is not a balla, then he could not be tired of ballin'.

I tried to go a step further, but I couldn't. It gets too confusing. You would need a million scientists to crack that next step (not these scientists though, they're idiots). 

My confusion makes even more sense when you look at the unedited version of the song, where instead of "snitches in my mix", Tela has, uh, "b's" on his "d"...if you know what I mean. So, a balla doesn't get tired of balling becasue he gets a lot of "love". It makes sense that a balla wouldn't get tired of that! Everyone loves "love".

But in the edited version a balla doesn't get tired of ballin becasue they have too many snitches in their mix. What? Let's reinterpret and compare that shit:

UNEDITED VERSION:

"One would not get tired of a job which generates positive attention from the ladies." <--MAKES SENSE BUT IS DUMB

EDITED VERSION:

"One would not get tired of a job which invites many close friends to inform the police of secret criminal activity." <MAKES NO SENSE AND IS DUMBER. You would get tired of that. Losing friends, hanging out with traitors, going to prision.

Shit! We've written a lot about this! And we still need to get to the whole song. Maybe we'll find out if Tela is a balla or not at some point. I'm not going to go off the video for the lyrical analysis since it's edited, I'm going to look at the unedited version.

Okay, so it sounds like Tela was, in fact, a balla at some point. He was, uh, "friends" with the ladies, and he was making money, and enjoying a good lifestyle. But by the end of the first verse he laments the downside of balling: lawsuits, inability to quit, getting shot at, and the need to maintain a certain status. But I would say that he dedicated more time in verse one to describing the up side of balling as opposed to the downside.

In verse two Tela once again opens by describing the positive side of balling: not being accountable to anyone, having the resourses to make bail, ladies, etc.. No downside to balling is mentioned at all. What about verse three? It's the same thing, except that Tela talks about his rap career mostly. He does mention that he is suicidal, though.

While the song would lead me to believe that Tela is a balla, and is not tired of it at all. But what does the offical video say? Well, he sucessfully, uh, "appeals" to a female parking officer who is writing him a ticket, in front of his current lady. So he used his balla skills there, I guess. Nice job getting out of that $20 ticket, Tela. Then another lady abandonds her car in traffic to join Tela in his car. Then there is a fancy dinner or something, shoe shopping, and an alligator on a leash.

 

Okay, so who booked Tela to speak at the "Player's Anonymous Meeting", he's not going to help anyone recover from balling. In fact, his presentation will probably encourage them to relapse. The point is driven home at the end of the video when one of the people in the meeting declares that Tela is a true "baller". TELA WAS A BALLER THE WHOLE TIME AND HE ISN'T TIRED OF IT AT ALL. FALSE ADVERTISING. GOOD GRIEF.



"Tela is definately not tired of ballin'" - this guy



IN CONCLUSION: This song is the confusingest. It's not a good song at all. The beat (which I forgot to mention) is silly and sounds like a million other songs. The content is bland (and recycled). But what was the point? Are you tired of ballin or not? No? THEN WHY MAKE THE SONG TEAL?

TIRED OF BALLIN' SCORE 0/10

Also, BLOGGER needs to fix their formatting tools, the shit is garbage. Eat Glass.