The Singles Jukebox

Answer the question, crew!

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[6.14]Gin Hart: This is the ultimate posse-up song that isn’t about posse-ing up. I mean, it’s self-centered within and across verses, but it just has this clean, deep aura to it that’s eminently conducive to feeling like swaggy cowboys, together. Ya dude YG drops in with fluent vigor, matching the gravity and bounce of the bass. Those ragged breaths at the top hint he may’ve been spitting for minutes already, but it’s the only distress signal we get. He knows the haters aren’t a threat — the most they could hurt are his feelings, if a gnat could hurt the feelings of a giant (which, I hadn’t registered YG’s existence before this song, but listening to it feels natural enough to make me doubt my own unfamiliarity.) Mostly, he’s a curious guy: “Why be petty? Please tell me. Maybe I can help.” Drake’s feature is quintessentially Drake, sliding back and forth across his verse as though panning for gold at syncopated half-speed. Story-wise, it’s ultimately somewhat hollow of its central tension, and honestly isn’t about anything much, but that doesn’t stop me from putting it on the car stereo and waiting for everyone to sync up with the nod — a perfect feeling.
[9]

David Moore: Kamaiyah is a promising up-and-comer, YG rarely releases stuff I don’t like at least a little, and the beat’s solid, so this is a [7] easy, but I need to calcuate the Drake Feature Drag (DFD). The DFD formula determines how many points a Drake feature will ultimately cost a song on a ten-point scale: Length of verse in minutes (45 seconds, or .75) times half the sum of all groan-inducing dated pop culture references (1 for Moesha), excruciating puns (1 for “try to box me in / I got my own angles”), and humblebrags disguised as self-pity or vice versa (I’m giving him a point there for using the phrase “girls these days”), plus an additional singing penalty up to 2 points (N/A), minus one point per well-crafted line and/or unforced chuckle (zero). Final DFD on this one is -1.125, not too bad. (For comparison, a back of the envelope calculation for the “Work” DFD is somewhere between -2.5 and -3.) Total score is 5.88, but I’ll round up.
[6]

Taylor Alatorre: Whatever YG is doing to his voice in the first verse, it doesn’t suit him well. For as much as My Krazy Life was hailed as gangsta rap’s second coming, a big part of its charm lies in the subtle gradations it exposes in the hard-hearted gangsta persona: tributes to male friendship, expressions of earnest remorse, a preference for partying over violence. So if YG thinks he needs to raise the stakes for his sophomore album by hewing closer to some hypermasculine script, he’s mistaken. Luckily he reverts to his classic, more puckish tone by the end, but that doesn’t stop the beat from sounding like DJ Mustard nearing the end of his battery life. The Drake verse is a Drake verse, but his flow is impeccable and he adds an air of normality to the proceedings. Kamaiyah’s getting a big fat check from this, I hope.
[5]

Alfred Soto: I’m not sure why these platinum-certified acts are getting so defensive. If we’re hatin’ at all, blame the average Mustard beat.
[5]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: This feels like it was conceived in a universe where Dj Mustard defined early 00’s car-stereo rap instead of The Neptunes. It is also kind of incredible that the guy with the weaker verse here is the one who’s actually dominating today’s hip-hop culture. He even tries to jack YG’s flow; a futile task, but man, one can admire the commitment.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: Drake hopped on hyphy before, though his enunciation still remains too sharp for his own good. The divide is wide especially against Kamaiyah, whose native, elastic flow turns the titular question into a chant that rolls smooth off the tongue. And YG is YG, just tackling through a track his way regardless of whatever he may get thrown.
[6]

Brad Shoup: YG and Drake close their bars super strong: the former’s on a singsong Houston thing, the latter just has jokes. Not crazy about the hook, but maybe if I hear it all summer I’ll change my mind.
[6]