Memphis' Project Pat cuts right to the point on the song "County Jail" off his upcoming LP, Layin' the Smack Down — he doesn't plan on spending another second behind bars.

"I don't wanna go to county jail no more, more, more," he sings with a little girl in a nursery-rhyme fashion on the song's chorus. "It's a big fat policeman at my door, door, door/ He gonna snatch you by your collar, make you pay a dollar."

See, Pat is kicking it straight from the heart. Around the time his last album, Mista Don't Play: Everythangs Workin, was released in February, Pat was arrested for a parole violation and thrown back in the clink for seven months.

"It was kind of messed up," he said. "I looked at it like, 'Man, you gotta do what you gotta do.' I hated it, but I got it over with, and I'm now here. It was messed up. I was just thinking about the hype and show money. But I was blessed, [Mista Don't Play] went platinum."

Without much mainstream airplay or a tour, Pat had to rely on the song "Chickenhead," which went over big in the South, to propel the LP to sales of more than 900,000 copies.

"That's just street love," said Pat, who was released in September. "I can't do nothing but dig it. I'm just out here trying to get a piece. The name of the new album is Layin' the Smack Down. That's what I came out here to try to do. A lot of groups come out of the South and don't get a lot of MTV, BET [airplay] like they should. We still go gold and platinum, though."

On the new disc, Pat talks about respecting people from the lower states.

"I got this one song called 'Shut Yo Mouth,' he said. "It talks about how folks try to down the South and [yet] their grandmama comes from the South. I gotta keep it Project Pat. I can't keep it away from where I originally came."

Other songs Pat said to look out for include "Jail and Weed" and "Fight" ("It's gonna make them fight," he said). As far as production and guests are concerned, Pat's mainly sticking with his Hypnotize Camp Posse (which includes Three 6 Mafia), but he said he's thinking of giving U.G.K. a call for an appearance.