Somehow, we haven’t covered him on this side of the “ft.” since 2011…

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[5.40]

Katherine St Asaph: The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing Rick Ross his strengths lied somewhere other than being completely hammy and ridiculous.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Ross doth protest rather loudly. The devil isn’t a lie, and, in case he had ideas, he isn’t the devil. Neither is the plutocrat drifting in for his duly paid for cameo after breastfasses. With his money he worries about Illuminati?
[5]

Brad Shoup: I’m wondering if I should give Jay credit for not rhyming “soda” or “stove up” with “Hova.” Apparently the reference is off his atheist brand. That’s kinda cool, I guess. The weedy soul sample glumly resets itself; it’s probably aiming for grim but it’s got nothing on Gene Williams going crazy in the background. None of this matters, though, when Ricky’s cracking up himself.
[6]

Crystal Leww: There is really nothing noteworthy about Rick Ross’s verses, floating along making his usual references to brands, girls, and drugs, but he just sounds so goddamn excited on this hook, each “The devil is a lie!” getting more and more outrageous until it just doesn’t sound real anymore. Rozay works so well over horns because if there’s someone who knows how to do triumphant, loud, and braggy, it’s Rick Ross. My god, though: we need to talk about Jay Z. This was the second time in December that Jay Z opened a verse with a listless question repeated awkwardly. Then he raps “Coulda got blacklisted for my crack shit / White Jesus in my crockpot / I mix the shit with some soda.” It’s not a rhyming issue; it just sounds so fucking awkward. He ends the verse bragging about King Hova, which I’m not really sure he’s allowed to do after that shitshow. Altogether, this is just so whatever.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: But the way Rick Ross says “the devil is a lie” is a laugh.
[5]

David Sheffieck: For some reason I can’t stop thinking of this as a slow spin on “Fuckin’ Problems,” from the way the vocal hook sounds like a pitchshifted take on the sample in Drake and Noah Shebib’s track to the way “The devil is a lie / I’m the truth” gets passed between Rick and Jay. But the song’s slow, period — low-key when it should be dominant, plodding when it should be impressive.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: Rick Ross lumbers along until Jay Z shockingly brings a pulse to the proceedings. I suspect the horns are meant to code as triumphant or regal, but they just weigh everything down.
[5]

Megan Harrington: Both rappers pass muster, and Hov manages to get through his verse without mention of cake, but I wish this was a proper group effort, maybe with Schoolboy Q and Pusha T filling out the ensemble. The production is so smoke-filled, all I can see is the Mafioso-style video. Rick Ross’s besuited leg stepping out of a stretch Hummer, a shot of the whole gang heading into the mansion, and then four minutes around a mahogany table. Each rapper gets a turn to contemplate his dark side. Shots of dogs every time Ross barks. The reality isn’t a total waste of time, but no one will remember this song in a month.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I wrote to a friend the other day that I didn’t want to live in Gibson’s dystopias anymore, and now even the music is competing against me. The whole thing rests on and is broken apart by that single spoken “church,” which is much more clever than the rest of this rampaging ego. 
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Okay, wait a fucking minute with the “see what I did to the stop’n’frisk” bravado: yes, the Trayvon march was an important look, but does pussyfooting about the other issue of corporate and systemic racial insensitivity mean we should just celebrate the $4.5K cashmere throw now? And yet — and yet! — Jay is suddenly interesting again. His verse is scattered but nimble, a sneer at the racially-charged superstitions shared by both YouTube paranoiacs and law enforcers, the heinous equation of Christian myths to Marcy bricks and a swipe of the hand towards 2 Chainz’s embossed jean collection. This is less a single than a vaguely masked post-“FuckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt” reconnaissance mission. Where Ross staggered about triumphantly on that song, here he blares and blurs into the horns. He has always over-performed on others’ songs, but we at least expect an unstoppable banger. “Devil” is nowhere near the anthem we need, and certainly the one that Ross needs. The song closes, melting away at half-speed, a cautious display of advice: the devil is a lie, yes, but decay is an unassailable truth.
[6]