The Singles Jukebox

Classic pair…

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[6.17]

Nortey Dowuona: Smooth, deep church chords with a sweet, gurgling bass that swirls around the simple fingersnaps and kicks that buoy Stormzy’s frank, open hearted spitting and… well, just get on the Kehlani brigade now because she has made this song even greater than it is.
[10]

Micha Cavaseno: His Kano via Drakk tributes are almost as effective as his Dizzee tributes, but unfortunately where he goes wrong is he happily indulges in a sappiness that even the most sweetboy contingents of grime would avoid. The soft R&B vibes are schmaltzy to the point of boredom, and Kehlani is at her most rote. Plus, Large Michael’s singing voice has an amateur earnestness, but maybe shouldn’t be paired up with such cantankerously hokey saxes.
[2]

Claire Biddles: I don’t come to Stormzy for slow jams, but then I just imagine that he’s my dirtbag boyfriend and he’s doing his bad singing at me while I’m giving a disapproving look and suddenly I can’t give this a bad score? I mean have you seen how tall and beautiful he is? Kehlani is good too! And the lil’ saxophone bit towards the end. But seriously, he’s so handsome? And he’s saying that I won’t ever let him down? And he’s admitting that he fucked up badly! I think this time he’s really gonna change, you know?
[6]

Alfred Soto: I like hearing songs about relations dependent on indulgences. “Cigarettes & Cush” is unusual for its supper club vibe and delicate Kehlani performance complementing Stormzy’s kush-blasted plaints. Yet remove Stormzy and the result is a sly where-are-you that would’ve been a high point on Kehlani’s excellent debut released in January. The damn thing’s too long.
[6]

Josh Love: From a purely sonic perspective this song is quite staid, yet it manages to still be extremely memorable on the strength of a lovely refrain and lyrics that have a powerful, consistent through-line. Essentially it’s a love song for potheads with a breakup coda. Rather than wander off into generic platitudes, it hews tightly to depicting two people who love getting high together, and all the tenderness and abdication of hard truth that kind of chemical romance implies. In that light it’s actually somehow moving rather than ridiculous when Kehlani says “I’ll still pass the bong to you.”
[7]

Stephen Eisermann: Sappy R&B ballad about the unifying tendencies of cigarettes and cush that is sold primarily by the throwback composition and the wonderfully juxtaposed voices on the chorus. I imagine that with your eyes closed, sitting on a beach, next to your significant other, with a finished blunt sinking into the sand, this track and the saxophone take you to places romantics only dream of; but, that’s far more rare, and in sobriety this is just sort of… nice.
[6]