The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Ace Hood ft. Future and Rick Ross – Bugatti

Because when you make a video with said Bugatti, you want it obscured by DJ Khaled at every opportunity.


[Video][Website]
[6.22]

Sonya Nicholson: In the field of cinematic rap, a good metaphor is everything, and waking up in a new sports car — slightly unbelieving of your good fortune, feeling like you have gotten away with something, half-expecting it to be taken away — is as good a metaphor for sudden fame as any. And the song delivers on the details: the whee-oh whee-oh synths that stand in for sirens; the ratcheting tension created by those skittering drum sounds; the new energy injected by each guest verse. Much like The Hurt Locker, the tension never eases — except, that is, on the blazed-out choruses, where Ace Hood draws out the vowels (“stay smoking on good Jamaaaaican, fuck bitches from different raaaaaces”) in short, forced bursts of calm. It’s all been done before, but it’s all done right here. 
[8]

Michelle Myers: Even Ace Hood, America’s most “merely adequate” street rapper, can’t mess up a track in which Future shouts about foreign (the descriptor de jour for both cars and women) through a thick layer of autotune over a wailing post-brostep trap beat from Mike WiLL.
[8]

Crystal Leww: Mike WiLL continues to churn out the hits, and “Bugatti” stars him and his production, not Ace Hood, not Future, and certainly not the lackluster Rick Ross. Notice the way the beat moves, and maybe more obviously, starts and stops throughout the verses. He’s the one controlling these punchlines and how they really get delivered to the listener, not the rapper! In particular, the chorus builds, pauses, and then explodes as Future repeats, with more and more fervor, “I woke up in a new Bugatti!” It’s more and more triumphant every time that Future says it.
[7]

Andy Hutchins: The only thing that sticks is Future’s proclamation of waking up in a new Bugatti. This is a shame, because Ace’s slippery flow and Bill Bob’s — why don’t we call Rick Ross, real name William Roberts, Bill Bob? — rumble are both very good over yet another stormy Mike WiLL Made It beat, and because you shouldn’t ad-lib “Turn up!” before you tell the world you woke up in a car.
[5]

Anthony Easton: The Bugatti is ugly and not nearly as much as a performance vehicle as others in its league. Also, yet another track that wastes Future. 
[3]

Al Shipley: Relegating Future to mere hook dude on many of his recent features is a subtle insult — even T-Pain got a verse more often than not. Still, this is one of his best, most deranged choruses since “Same Damn Time.” And “Bugatti” features some of the best hi-hat programming of the post-Lex Luger stutter rhythm era, with Mike Will Made It harnessing those cricket chirp trills into some actual propulsive forward rhythm. Unfortunately, Ace Hood is taking the popularity of Big Sean and Kendrick Lamar as a cue to rap in relentless triplet flows, which he could’ve at least switched up on the second verse. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: Future’s woozy hook deserves verses better than “hit her and go home and call her again,” and Ross’ twentieth variant on rags-to-bitchez doesn’t cut it either.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Ace and Future are working from a child’s playbook; the latter is on that hide-and-seek cadence, the former raps like a cartoon pirate. I guess there’s no fucking with that Mike WiLL beat, the haywire snares and horror synths. (I thought there were hard ‘splosions also, but it’s just a combo of frantic programming and Future’s world-swallowing take on the Bugatti situation.) Amazingly, it’s up to Rozay to bring some daylight, and God love him, he does. He just wants my love, and if he keeps coming up with D-League puns, he’s got it.  
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: But who do the marketing people give the Bugatti to? Future, the man who namechecks them, or Ace Hood, the man whose song it is? And have Far East Movement yet taken delivery of their G6 jet? These are the important questions.
[6]

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