It’s okay Jazmine, we still love you..ou…ou..ouuu…ou..ou..

[Video][Website]
[4.75]

Scott Mildenhall: Good heavens, that noise. It’s like listening to this on Yahoo! LAUNCHcast with a struggling modem. Without it “Insecure” would be quite smooth, but even as that sonic scouring pad gets shuffled to the background, it’s still looping and looping, dominating proceedings over and above all of Sullivan and Tiller’s cogitation. In general, the phrase “curate’s egg” seems an unfair one, but if it’s ever justifiable, it may be here.
[3]

Alfred Soto: This theme song for an HBO show, reliant on Pleasure P’s “Rock Bottom,” is perfunctory as far as Jazmine Sullivan’s exemplary standards go, and like many themes it’s made for thirty seconds of play, not 3:40. She and Bryson Tiller conjure a worried frisson, though.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: Truly a sadistic gesture of irony, to have one of the greatest voices of their generation try to make a duet with the most deliberately feeble. The constant mute flicker on the ghostly samples works to both make the record unstable and likewise disrupt anyone’s ability to enjoy the song for long. Neither of the featured singers bring their particular A games, but I wouldn’t bemoan them for happily reaping the benefits of something else’s success.
[2]

Josh Love: It’s a real shame a song this mediocre is serving as the de facto flagship of Insecure, because the show has done such a tremendous job of incorporating extant R&B from the likes of SZA, Teedra Moses, and even Jazmine Sullivan herself into its tapestry. Personally, I have been seriously underrating R&B, particularly the stuff made by women, during this especially fertile period spanning the past few years. Preferring hip-hop and pop, much of it just seemed a tad on the dull side to me on the strength of largely cursory listens. I know this is the lamest cultural tourist shit imaginable, but seeing how beautifully this music inhabits Issa’s world has given me a new appreciation of its power. Much of that credit belongs to the show itself; surely due in no small part to the fact that the cast includes actual musicians like Jidenna and Amanda Seales, Insecure treats cultural icons like Beyonce and Solange not as subjects for idol worship or aspirational models but kindred spirits. Again, too bad the song “Insecure” is so limp, plus I can’t help feeling it’d be nice considering it shares a name with the show if the lyrics tracked at least a little bit with the characters and how they actually undermine their relationships. In Sullivan’s telling it’s the guy who’s insecure, which manifests itself by him being a controlling asshole. The series, however, is more about Issa’s insecurity, and while you could certainly argue Lawrence’s behavior is indicative of insecurity too, it shows up not by him trying to keep Issa under wraps but by taking her so much for granted that she feels compelled to look elsewhere for fulfillment.
[4]

Stephen Eisermann: Much like the television show the song hails from, this song is almost too real. Jazmine and Bryson trade verses blaming each other for their insecurities, but you can tell that both parties come from places of hurt. Jazmine is the woman drowning in the controlling aspects of Bryson, but Bryson’s fear comes from his constant traveling – here both parties are justified in their frustrations. The dirty, minimal composition stages their voices and their exchange perfectly with neither side being wrong. This difficult situation is all too familiar, but listening to the ache in each of their voices is cathartic. Plus, seeing/hearing other people go through these same problems I’ve gone through is strangely comforting: if I have to deal with my insecurity, it’s good to know the rest of the world is too.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: Dropping the music out and making silence an instrument itself is a good trick, but it’s got its limits. Jazmine Sullivan remains a tremendous singer (and usually, she’s a pretty damn good songwriter too), but both the repeated vocal samples and the silences between them drown her out.
[4]

Ian Mathers: The loop on “Insecure” isn’t just stuttered in a way that might have you wondering about your wi-fi; it’s watery and muted the way music sounds when it’s coming through an apartment wall. Fittingly enough, that song sounds a lot more showy and dramatic than this one, because here Sullivan and Tiller are mostly trying to keep a level head. That doesn’t mean that aren’t serious issues being discussed, or even that our narrators aren’t moving towards a pretty significant conclusion. It just means, fittingly enough for the show “Insecure” soundtracks, they’re trying to stay levelheaded and mature and do the right thing. That tension, and the fact that many (most?) of us can’t manage the same all the time, is the best part of the song.
[7]

Jibril Yassin: Paint-by-numbers R&B that feels too wide-eyed and bogged down for its aim. What’s the point of having both Bryson Tiller and Jazmine Sullivan to play off one another when they have to deal with a flaccid hook and a middle eight that refuses to lift this song out of the trenches? 
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