The first thing that strikes you about Slim Thug is the voice. Deep, brawny and thick with a Texas twang, the rapper's lines hit home like a pummelling series of punches. After becoming a self-sufficient mixtape phenomenon in the south in the '00s, Thugga broke into the mainstream with a cameo on a Mike Jones anthem in 2004. The buzz was flipped into a debut major label album in 2005 that was masterminded by The Neptunes and included key features from T.I., Bun B and Pusha T. Since then, Slim Thug's revisited his roots with a series of uncompromising and independently-released projects.