Second Round's on Me

The album debuted at number eight on the Billboard 200 with 74,000 copies sold in its first week.[1] As of January 2016, the album has sold 240,000 units.[2]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	48/100[3]
Review scores
Source	Rating
About.com	[4]
AllMusic	[5]
Entertainment Weekly	C+[6]
HipHopDX	[7]
Okayplayer	[8]
PopMatters	[9]
RapReviews	8.5/10[10]
Rolling Stone	[11]
Vibe	[12]
XXL	[13]

Second Round's on Me received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 48, based on 9 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[3]

J-23 of HipHopDX gave high praise to Trice for having more of a presence on his own record to display his improved lyricism, vocal delivery and choice in beats, saying, "[T]hese days everyone likes to think that every respectable artist has one "classic" in their catalogue. If that is the case, Second Round's On Me will likely go down as Obie's."[7] Brendan Frederick of XXL praised Trice and Eminem for having "superb attention to visual details and calculated rhyme structure" and an "expanded production palate" throughout the album to deliver in telling "bleak oratories of Detroit's streets" but also highlighted Rotem's contributions on "Mama" and "Obie Story" for allowing Trice to show "historical context to his struggles", concluding with: "Filled with unflinching street tales and dense lyrical couplets, Second Round should be sipped slowly for full potency. No shots to the head necessary."[13] Thomas Golianopoulos of Vibe praised Eminem for supplying Trice's "sinister outlook" with "equally gloomy production" on tracks like "Violent" and "The Ballad of Obie", but highlighted "Mama" for showcasing Trice with "a much sunnier disposition."[12] A writer for AllMusic said: "Leaning heavily on a mid-paced, paranoid gangsta rap production style, evidenced on tracks like "They Wanna Kill Me" and "Snitch" (a duet with Akon), Trice stakes his claim as a tough, swaggering performer whose self-awareness never undermines his hard, ghetto edge."[5]

Entertainment Weekly writer Gilbert Cruz gave the album a C grade, calling it "a more subdued affair" than Trice's debut because it lacked Timbaland and Dr. Dre's "jaunty beats" and with more "repetitive, simplistic production" from Eminem, concluding that "Second Round's on Me does have moments of cross-genre joy, but this round goes down like a cheap well drink."[6] Peter Relic of Rolling Stone wrote: "Full of creepy, minor-key themes and powered by homicidal mania, Second Round is wholly lacking in the playfulness that made his debut, Cheers, a varied delight."[11] PopMatters contributor Mike Joseph gave credit to Trice for having a "solid" flow, but criticized the "tired, predictable subject matter" throughout the track listing and Eminem's production feeling "agonizingly predictable" and "substandard" to distract listeners from the hate-filled material, concluding that: "Second Round's on Me just emphasizes everything that's wrong with gangsta rap, which started out as admirable street reporting and has regressed into wanton violence which should be viewed as a cartoon, but a generation of urban youth has unfortunately come to accept as gospel."[9]

The track "Wanna Know" was used for a Science Channel commercial, in episode 5 of Friday Night Lights and the video game Fight Night Round 3.