The Singles Jukebox

From Daniel, a post-release single that reached the top 5 in the US (and #1 in *checks notes* Latvia?)…

[Video]
[4.85]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: I’ll be honest, I really thought Gunna’s career was over after taking a plea deal related to Young Thug’s ongoing RICO case. Hip hop doesn’t like the potential of cooperation with the law, let alone snitching, so we had several months of high-ranking peers throwing shots at Gunna and op-eds with titles like “Did Gunna’s Plea Deal Get Him Shunned?” Regardless, “Fukumean’ is the biggest hit of his post-“Drip Too Hard” career; whatever his billion-stream track with Nav sounds like, it doesn’t have the narrative of overcoming struggle and shrugging off the naysayers. Which is hilarious because this is very much business as usual, a triplet-tripping filip with a genderless chorus of synthetic sneers every few beats: “FUCK YOU MEEEANNN?!?” I couldn’t tell you a single memorable bar that Gunna delivers here, and yet this song has been stuck in my head all year. It’s the least defiant show of public defiance in some time, the “Dust Off Your Shoulder” mantra as an eyeroll, a club-engineered megahit that doesn’t tidy up click-clacking sounds of swaying jewellery or clinking ice cubes by the microphone. It’s not laziness, or rebellion, or pretending everything’s okay, but some weird amalgamation of the three and I don’t know what the fukthatmeans.
[6]

Oliver Maier: I’ve written before that Gunna’s real strength is an ear for beats that suit his bleakly restrained style. That’s true here: the “ee-yah” noise is an unlikely earworm that I can imagine other rappers instantly passing on, but this lacks the winning stupidity of “pushin P”, the sugariness of “SKYBOX” or “DOLLAZ ON MY HEAD”, or whatever “Speed It Up” has that makes me love it so much.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I still listen to Gunna in desperate hope that I can one day reclaim the pure glee I experienced the first time I heard “Drip Too Hard.” This doesn’t quite get there — Gunna (understandably) sounds slightly defeated here — a resolute figure of survival, but not one that’s having all that much fun even as he talks about “shittin on all you lil’ turds.” And if you deliver that line deadpan I’m not sure we have the same musical goals.
[5]

Will Adams: Three things: an annoyed and/or annoying “…yeah?”; the title hook, delivered as a schoolyard taunt; “shittin’ on all you lil’ turds”. Even at two minutes, “Fukumean” is light on ideas, and the ones available are only kind of good.
[4]

Ian Mathers: Some songs would get by on either the “fuck you mean?” bit of the “a-yup” bit, and they’d be fine. Using both well in about two minutes that also fits in a compelling performance from Gunna (lots of lines are just sticking with me, I’ve been muttering “I see the ho with precision/Get rich my only decision” to myself for a bit) ought to be gilding the lily, but it feels just about right.
[8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Every “eeeyahh” is methodical, consuming, and withering: “Fukumean” isn’t an all out assault of swagger so much as a series of waves meant to drag you out from shore. 
[7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: My immediate reaction was to think of the repeated squeaking in “The Box,” but this is a track so deflated and bare that everything is reduced to a haze. The hook is so much of a non-presence it’s hard to care — it’s sung with the insistence of children fighting sleep.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Gunna’s been boring before, so him half-heartedly going in over a particularly uninspired detuned piano loop here isn’t a disappointment as much as it’s further validation of how little he’s ever had going on for him as a rapper. Hell, the best part of this song isn’t even himself, it’s the backing vocal chorus (which truthfully has nothing to do with him and might even overshadow him?). But yeah, Gunna remains one-note as ever though I’m glad he’s separated himself from perhaps the most noxious legal trial to ever involve rapper(s). I’ll take Atlanta’s rap scene being unlistenable over their rap scene being mass incarcerated any day.
[2]

Taylor Alatorre: Opinions may differ on this, but I personally don’t enjoy being yelled at. I don’t have this issue with Bone Crusher on “Never Scared” or Lil Jon on “Bia’ Bia’,” who are both much louder, but for some reason I can’t help feeling that the Greek chorus (Atlantan chorus?) in “Fukumean” is shouting the title phrase at me specifically. Like, what did I do, Gunna? I mostly liked a Gift & a Curse! The song’s official instrumental includes neither this hook nor the possibly Sho Madjozi-inspired “iyah” vocalization; going by the YouTube comments bemoaning their absence, it’s these two elements that have most fueled its staying power. They do indeed make it memorable, and instantly recognizable in a public setting. Apart from those steady drips of attitude, though, there just isn’t much to feed on here.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: “A music writer handed a Gunna song to discuss finds himself confronted by several problems, not the least which is the necessity of squaring with his conscience the fact he is discussing Gunna at all.” — mostly copied from James Baldwin on James M. Cain’s The Moth in The Cross of Redemption, page 291.
[0]

Brad Shoup: Might be the absurd amount of Post Malone I streamed this year, but I’m trying not to underrate the modern compact pop-rap single. But he doesn’t have any lines better than the (very good) hooks.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Rarely does one hear a track with such monumental determination to not bang. In a way, it’s impressive.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Dependent on its hook, this obscene banality barely exists — a bit like Gunna himself. 
[6]