The Singles Jukebox

The calls are coming from inside the song…

[Video][Website]
[6.75]

Will Adams: The opening “hello” was way more convincing than Adele’s, especially thanks to the filtered touch tone melody in the background. Kevin Gates’ erratic flow works well in the verses, but the hook could have used more stability to hold everything together.
[6]

Alfred Soto: No way is it “Juicy,” but “2 Phones” shares its I-made-it-Ma ebullience. Kevin Gates’ frogmouth tone has graced several of the most affecting hip hop tracks of the last three years, and he seizes the chorus like the steering wheel of his Ferrari. A pity about the bitch boasting.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Kevin Gates is weird, solely because he is such a genius at crafting pop-minded hooks for songs that are anthemic but don’t always feel commercial. To be honest, there is very little on Islah that doesn’t feel like it couldn’t get on the radio. But so many of the details on the verses are so crammed in and hysterical it feels like isolating them on the expanse of radio would be cruel and inhospitable. So when Gates rambles about paranoia and stress on the second verse over this simple beat, it’s hard to picture that making more of an impact than his admittedly generic hook’s obvious catchiness. Only Kevin Gates can make songs about drug running feel like Whitesnake-level ballad pop, with both the positive and negative connotations.
[7]

Crystal Leww: Kevin Gates sounds the best when he sounds urgent, frantic, and driven. “2 Phones” sounds great on the verses here where he goes a million miles an hour and goes loud and quiet, but a great hook eludes him here, unfortunately.
[5]

Brad Shoup: Hearing Gates navigate these verses is like pointe work; he traces these neat melodic webs and springs free each time. “2 Phones” has melodic nuggets for days, even as it’s too grim for the crossover. But to hear him dance with the backgrounded Eurodance melody is a real treat.
[8]

Anthony Easton: The first third of this was generic, but the sped up, misogyny-tinged middle bit — work against the endless repeating bridge — had brief potential. 
[6]

Josh Langhoff: As a rule, I’m not a fan of Kevin Gates’ (or any rapper’s) triplet flows. In “The Truth” and “Really Really” Gates lands impressive strings of syllables but sacrifices rhythmic power to do it, and since this guy really really likes his triplets, I’ve had trouble warming to his Islah album. “2 Phones” is a great exception. The difference is, Gates switches up the accented syllables — if normal triplets fall “ONEanduh TWOanduh,” with the numbers landing on the beats, Gates’ first verse goes “ONEandUH twoANDuh,” putting him in almost constant conflict with the rhythm he and Mad Max establish in the hook. Subsequent verses work variations on this modified triplet pattern by omitting syllables — one out of every six, say. This is all just as showy as Gates’ regular triplet songs, but it has the advantage of creating bafflingly complex composite rhythms while rendering his words as forceful and immediate as ringing phones.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: The two poles of hip-hop crossover success in the 2010s, hookiness and memeablity, are present; but Gates’ charisma is the third factor that suggests there may not be a ceiling to where he can go from here.
[8]