The Singles Jukebox

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[4.67]

Micha Cavaseno: *Wiley vox* No, Leshurr is good cuz, she IS good… But I’m not going to lie, there’s something about the goofiness here that still sounds like the rest of the QS series in being mostly freestyles. Transitionally it works, but Leshurr needs to find a single of her own to really make her home. Also Z. Dot has to be the most generic and tedious grime producer in existence.
[5]

Crystal Leww: Underrated for years, a Lady Leshurr song is finally making it big, appearing in a commercial and playing in Beats 1 Radio. In many ways, she paved the road for non-American girls with thick accents like Tkay Maidza without getting any of the credit for how great she is at actual rapping. This freestyle features a line as horrendous as “got a dark-skinned friend that looks like Rachel Dolezal / got a light-skinned friend that looks like Rachel Dolezal,” and it’s still an absolute knock-out.
[7]

Iain Mew: Lady Leshurr is a talented rapper, and this freestyle shows off her technique and personality as well as having a decent silly hook. It’s weird to hear it picked up by Radio 1 months later though, because its appeal drew so much on topicality. Her taste-skirting gags about Fetty Wap and especially Rachel Dolezal had an up to the moment she-went-there feel that was much stronger than the actual jokes, and they’re already around their use-by date. The awful line about Caitlyn Jenner, which reduces her to her transition and offensively links it to male humiliation, was never in date to begin with.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: “I turn a man to a girl like Bruce Jenner,” she (barely, passably) raps. Fuck you and your transphobia, Lady Leshurr, and fuck right off.
[0]

Brad Shoup: It’s rough, cos on one hand it’s a freestyle, which tends to happen in safer spaces, but there’s no space small enough to accommodate the Caitlyn Jenner joke. The Dolezal joke would be killer if you didn’t use Twitter, the Fetty joke is only sold once she sings “yeeeeah baby”. But again, she says it’s a freestyle, so it makes sense that she slows her flow and pretends that Rozay’s only got a beer gut. The bassy, mincing string figure recalls Eminem, who’s now out like half a dozen punchlines.
[3]

Andy Hutchins: Bias admitted: This has been one of my favorite songs of the year since I first heard it during the Samsung commercial that breaks up a thousand daily fantasy ads on NFL Sundays back in September, and I’ve proselytized for it since. That said, this is the sort of ominous battle-ready production that always wins for its simplicity when a rapper uses it to lay down fire. And of the dozens of bars loaded in the chamber, there is one here that doesn’t totally work, the obviously off-color “I’ll turn a man to a gyal like Bruuuce Jenner” — which only fails for me because it’s 2015, and the joke isn’t my style, not because it’s lacking wit. (The flip of Kanye’s immortal “Got a dark-skinned friend…” bar to lampoon Rachel Dolezal more than makes up for it.) The bar-for-bar brio on display here is what Lil Wayne fans lionized forever ago, and Lady Leshurr’s mastery of the hashtag form and the onomatopoeia of the best Nicki Minaj verses makes this as entertaining a three-minute stretch of music as has been recorded this year.
[9]

Scott Mildenhall: The good thing about the formal declaration of banter is that it does prepare you for something egregious, and sure enough it isn’t long before the Jenner line. There’s a bravery in making your wordplay almost your sole virtue, and this proves why: occasionally smart, but more than occasionally lazy. On top of that, the puerile, “hilarious remarks on Jeremy Kyle”-style dental degradation is memorable, but also boring. It’s like watching certain unfortunate kids at school being humiliated all over again.
[5]

Alfred Soto: When she threatens violence, her voice tightens like a fist, evoking Dizzee Rascal. The three-bar string sample and click track will never go out of style, will they?
[5]

Will Adams: Amidst the Family Guy-level hashtag rap and enervated orchestra hits, it’s at least nice that Lady Leshurr encourages good dental hygiene.
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