The Singles Jukebox

In which nobody is as surprised as the title wants them to be…

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[3.56]

Al Shipley: Drumma Boy, one of the most consistent producers in southern rap’s recent years, had scarcely if ever made a song I didn’t enjoy, at least until “No Hands” and “Oh My.” I’m thinking maybe he just needs to be kept away from Roscoe Dash. Wiz Khalifa coins the closest thing to a clever, original joke I’ve ever heard from him here (“come out to my city, see I run that bitch like errands”) but otherwise dude is still basically just talking over beats.
[2]

Michaela Drapes: Any one of the featured guests on this track probably could have turned this into a great number on their own. Unfortunately Drama’s attempt to stuff three such distinct voices raising rather generic paeans to the pleasing physiology of ladies into the quagmire of this squashy production means that ultimately nothing stands out. Not even Roscoe Dash’s too-charming southern gentleman diction can save this one.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Yes! Finally, someone remembers the undeniable, cross-genre badass appeal of Tweet ft. Missy Elliott — oh. Really, what wouldn’t be a letdown?
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Fabolous earns his pay with punchlines, and he punches the clock accordingly: “Like LeBron, I’m taking my talents down to South Beach.” Golf clap, cha-ching, quitting time. That’d be fine if he wasn’t meant to hold down the cut in superstar first-at-bat position. Mix-and-match tracks like this require rappers with a range of styles, so it’s too bad for Wiz Khalifa his role is to play an upmarket version of Fab. It’s even worse for him that he doesn’t say anything worth remembering. Roscoe’s melodic flow is novel in this environment, but I remember “No Hands,” and that had Flocka, so why am I bothering with this? Hell, I guess I wouldn’t change stations if it came on.
[5]

Andy Hutchins: Much as I would like to dock this several hundred points for the rancid LeBron punchline Fab drops, and as amused as I am that Wiz Khalifa is now anchoring DJ Drama singles, this instrumental is massive. Drumma Boy’s alarm tone synths zoom by in every direction during the busy drone of the hook, with the scurrying-beetle drums well underneath, but the instrumental recedes to echoes and hazes for the verses. It’s the sort of loud-soft-loud thing that rap producers get right far less often than old rock hands. Scores of rappers have tried their hands at the plodding “Tupac Back” instrumental; that they haven’t taken this beat and dismembered it is an indictment of them and the spirit of imagination in rap.
[6]

Hazel Robinson: This is that noisewall you get when you’re walking through a shopping centre and all the stores have their music on too loud, so it turns into a mélange of distortion. Which is unfortunate, since there’s a synth line and bass growl that promise more than ever turns up; everyone phones it in, either autotuned into static obscurity or barely remembering to rap rather than just mutter to themselves in the loos.
[5]

Brad Shoup: Man, this is some joyless filler, some GTA-style stale atmosphere. Someone tell me when we got so interested in jeans. Kenny Chesney doesn’t sing about jeans this much.
[1]

Jonathan Bogart: This town ain’t big enough for DJ Khaled and DJ Drama to both be running the same hustle on the same corner. But at least Khaled has on guests who sound like themselves.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Would this sound better with just one guest? Yes. Would it be a good track? With a din this insistent, who knows.
[3]