Theater of the Mind

• The first official single is "What Them Girls Like", featuring Chris Brown & Sean Garrett. The single peaked at #33 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• The second official single is "One More Drink", featuring T-Pain, peaking at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• The third single is confirmed to be "Nasty Girl", featuring Plies.

• The first promo single is "Wish You Would", featuring T.I.
• The second promo single is "Undisputed", featuring Floyd Mayweather Jr.
• The song "Last of a Dying Breed", featuring Lil Wayne, peaked at #65 on the Billboard 100.

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	68/100[11]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[12]
The A.V. Club	(B)[13]
Billboard	(favorable) 2008
Blender	[14]
The Boston Globe	(favorable) 2008
Robert Christgau	[15]
Entertainment Weekly	B[16]
NOW	[17]
Pitchfork	(5.3/10)[18]
Rolling Stone	[19]
XXL	(XL)[20]
Slant Magazine	[21]

Theater of the Mind garnered a mild reception from music critics. Addi Stewart from NOW praised the cinematic concept throughout the record, from its title to the vast majority of featured artists on every track.[17] Entertainment Weekly's Simon Vozick-Levinson said about the overall feel of the album: "Theater feels a bit like yet another Ocean's Eleven sequel. We've watched this movie more than a few times, but it's always fun to see this many talented pals cutting loose together."[16] Josh Eells of Blender felt the lyrical content making up the whole concept record was lacking and too complacent for Luda, saying that "Punch line for punch line, Luda is still the best in the business, but these sex jams and hater disses feel too flat and perfunctory for his thousand-watt personality." He concluded that after the final track "the whole thing seems less like an album than a branding exercise—an obligatory effort to keep the “hip-hop star” line on his CV."[14] The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin commended the upbeat tracks and lyrical collaborations with T-Pain, Nas/Jay-Z and T.I. but felt they were only decent retreads of Luda's previous material and lacked the strengths found in his guest verses on other people's records. He also compared it to Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak on how it engages its respective fanbases, saying that Mind is "more immediately accessible, but ultimately less resonant" and could benefit from a "radical reinvention" that's similar to Heartbreak.[13] Robert Christgau cited "I Do It for Hip Hop" as a "choice cut",[15] indicating a good song on "an album that isn't worth your time or money."[22] Ian Cohen, writing for Pitchfork, commended the first third for its lyrical boasts, criticized the middle portion's "one dimensionality" and "woefully underdeveloped" party jams and found the final half's hip-hop checklist tracks passable if the listeners can stomach the logic behind them, saying that "[W]hile Theater isn't quite as dire as the above may indicate, like every other Ludacris record, it doesn't grow on you-- in fact, it actually contracts."[18]

The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, selling 214,000 copies in its first week, making it his sixth top 5 album on that chart. It was his first album since 2000's Back for the First Time and 2001's Word of Mouf to not reach number one status, and his lowest charting album in his career. As of March 2010, the album has sold about 671,000 copies, achieving a gold certification.[23]