The Singles Jukebox

If you insist on buying us Gucci, Dave, let me tell you that we’re a size 5.83.

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[5.83]

Katherine St Asaph: A lot to like: the wonderfully twitchy percussion, the bars that sound a little like Andru Donalds, the spliced-in Lil Jon sample that’s so retrospectively obvious it seems like someone must have done it first. (Right? Commenters?) There’s just a minute too much of it.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: “If” is a surprisingly over the top record of toybox-cuteness, which is weird when it still manages that with those buried Lil’ Jon roars in the mix. All the same, Davido actually sounds entirely at home in puppy love in a way I don’t see many afrobeats artists embracing to this extent, and it provides an amazing dimension of character given the times he’s sounded so rough and ready. And if anything, the production drifting away from danceability to daydream glee is almost pushing the envelope further than even the most dread-laden of tracks.
[7]

Alfred Soto: At its core a zealously mixed and ear-catching electronic percussive hook, “If” also benefits from Nigerian singer Davido’s attention to the verities.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: The production is a lovely confection: cheap MIDI horns, the sound of an 80s video game character jumping, Lil Jon. It’s also blissfully relaxed amid Davido’s rhapsodising, expressing his love (in a clumsy, obvious and endearing way, it must be said) and offerings of 30 billion.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: The production on this is too minimalist by half, and I kinda hate the way Lil Jon’s sampled/shouted “Yeah!” is used as a percussive instrument — if you’re gonna use it, why have it half-buried in the mix like this?
[3]

Tim de Reuse: There’s a perplexing, toyish beat with the texture of marbles rubbing together, and not a whole lot else. I admit a definite charm to the cheap little MIDI horns that come in later and the straightforward sincerity in the delivery of “I love you, I love you / There’s nothing above you” but all ideas introduced after the first minute are just flourishes on top of a skeleton that only just kinda holds itself up as a good track in its own right.
[6]