Word of Mouf was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 67 based on eight reviews.[1]
Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "with his fashionably foul worldview, Ludacris could indeed be Foxx's bastard son, and Word often seems like nothing so much as an extended Dolemite routine set to hip-hop beats".[3]Robert Christgau of The Village Voice found Ludacris "raps and rhymes with gusto", adding: "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".[10]Dele Fadele of NME stated that "there's a more commercial edge to the beats, as well as a subversive edge you'd expect from an MC who's cribbed from Eddie Murphy routines".[6]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".[12]
In his mixed review, AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier called the album 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".[2] 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".[2]
Commercial performance
In the United States, the album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and number-one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts, with first-week sales of 281,000 copies.[13] On November 30, 2022, the album was certified four times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling 4,000,000 units in the US alone.
The album reached number 30 on the Canadian Albums and number 6 on the Canadian R&B Albums charts, and by June 27, 2002 was received platinum certification by Canadian Recording Industry Association for the sales of 100,000 copies in Canada.
In the United Kingdom, Word of Mouf peaked at number 57 on the UK Albums Chart, number 12 on the UK R&B Albums, and also number 74 on the Scottish Albums charts. It was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry on July 22, 2013, selling 100,000 copies in the UK.
Track 6, 9 and 11 are omitted from the clean version of the album.
Track 18 is a bonus track containing "Welcome to Atlanta" as a hidden track that begins at 4:25 and lasts for 3:23 bringing the total time for track 18 to 7:48.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
