And we’re now officially 40% of the way to having a top 10! Yay beards!…

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Martin Skidmore: The team-up with 9th Wonder is a surprising one: Banner’s very much a Southern rapper, while 9th Wonder produces old-fashioned NYC soul-sampling hip hop. Banner drawls less and sounds as if he’s having romantic fun over a mellow, summery backing, with the expected superb support from Ludacris (who is less romantic, more sexual). It doesn’t have the grim power of some of Banner’s earlier work, but it’s very likeable.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Taking its cue from the breezy sample, Luda and Banner act like the Brer Fox and Brer Bear of fuck-rap, going down on their women and smiling from ear to ear without courting smugness.
[7]

David Moore: David Banner’s quieter moments have been memorable in the past, so I was looking forward to a 9th Wonder partnership. But the production is more Lite FM smooth than understated, and Banner slides around uncomfortably on the Teflon surface. Ludacris benefits from a comfier beat — the vogue for hashtagging over choppy, ultramodern club-synth anthems hasn’t treated him very well.
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Zach Lyon: I have trouble not loving 9th Wonder and the way his worship of classic soul dominates his output. And it coalesces beautifully with Banner and Luda back-and-forthing silly quips about womenfolk. And those quips aren’t really great individually, and Ambrosius’s voice is terribly underused, but it all adds up to this old Stones Throw atmosphere I have a soft spot for.
[8]

Josh Langhoff: Luda’s verses are laugh-out-loud funnier in the context of Death of a Pop Star, one of the more confounding and entertaining Christian rap albums I’ve heard, because he strings his random church and sex images together with such obvious glee, he makes me believe he’s getting away with something. It’s as though Banner invites him to church to give a testimonial, and instead Luda regales the congregation with a blasphemous blow-by-blow account of his Saturday night, and everybody ends up loving him anyway. As a single it’s just a straightforward pick-up/sex rap with some inexplicable God talk thrown in, but 9th Wonder’s track and Banner himself are warm and loose, and Luda’s “offering”/”oxygen” still makes me grin.
[7]

John Seroff: The relative milquetoasty-ness of “Be With You” in comparison to the rest of the excellent Death of A Pop Star album leaves me a bit leery about giving it too strong a recommendation, but I suppose Banner has a long history of coming hard on the album and radio-friendly on the single; it’s not like I was expecting to hear “The Light” on 106 and Park. Might as well count my blessings: gorgeous 9th Wonder production, a typically angelic (if repetitive) Ambrosius hook and if Luda’s verse sounds phoned in, Banner’s is a pleasant redux of his “rub on your toes” guest on “I’m Cool”.
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