The Singles Jukebox

More like BAND[5]BAND…

[Video]
[5.33]

Jackie Powell: The Olympics take place in Paris in just a few weeks, but here Central Cee and Lil Baby take us on a journey to the Clout Olympics, competing in their respective wealth. I can appreciate the globalization happening on this track: a confluence of the much more staccato UK style of rap of Central Cee alongside Lil Baby’s slurred Atlanta style. The contrast between their very different flows doesn’t cohere — at points their separate verses almost sound like separate tracks — but I appreciate them for trying. I don’t really know who “wins” this battle, but the most amusing couplet comes from Central Cee. “It’s got to the point that I don’t even care, I got jewels in the safe that I don’t even wear.”
[5]

Brad Shoup: Cee and Lil Baby have seen the trendline; they know we’re approaching exchange rate parity. Sure enough, one verse each, hook passed around evenly. But we’re not quite at parity, so I have to tilt it toward the UK rapper, who recovers from a weird opening couplet (if you can afford private, why did you book commercial?) to say nice things about his brother and scratch his head about people repping Allah and Jesus. I feel like this happens all the time, but it’s the way he says it: almost like an aside, just something he’s musing about. Lil Baby is all business: super crisp, willing to peel off hook after potential hook over some Link to the Past dungeon music.
[7]

TA Inskeep: I pretty much always love Central Cee’s flow, and this big-time US-UK rap summit with Lil Baby impresses, as the latter’s heavily Auto-tuned voice fits nicely on Geenaro & Ghana Beats’s hard UK drill track.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: Aasis Beats, Ghana Beats and Geenaro assemble a simple skeletal drill pattern that grows and wobbles at all the right places. Central raps in sharp staccato before switching into a smooth trap hi-hat skitter, and Baby skates over the bass kicks in legato until entering the drill section, where he feels more at home. The background synth pads play a three-note lead that doesn’t move, and the beat keeps dropping for emphasis, which somehow lessens the impact. Each line lands on Cee’s flat tenor or Baby’s nasally tenor, competent yet not gripping or even entertaining.
[4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I like Central Cee so much more in theory than in practice. His flow has an undeniably strong cadence, but the closer I listen, the more he sounds like he’s just shouting words off a piece of paper. His chemistry with Lil Baby is strong; if only this had more interesting subject matter. 
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: Central Cee and Lil Baby’s alternating approaches are reflected in the phonetics in their choice of challenge. The Brit, blowing out the plosives on “band for band,” is bullying and bruising, while the American’s “fuck that, we can go M for M” introduces a verse that slips and slides dangerously. Each looks better in the other’s cold light. The beat, too, is chilly, snares clattering like bare branches against a window.
[8]

Taylor Alatorre: The disparity in vocal textures is the star attraction, the hot potato hand-off of the chorus landing somewhere between manic and comical. It gives Lil Baby’s often directionless mewling a real purpose, casting him as the cocky American expat who must test his survival skills on a different set of streets. He proves able to tread water on a spare UK drill track without any overt signs of struggle, which is victory of a sort. Any “chemistry” within this Special Relationship is purely accidental, however, and it’s probably for the best that Baby and Cench don’t try to locate any shared interests beyond cars and banknotes.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Great meme format and all, but I just feel like we could do better in terms of world-conquering rap stars. These two are miscast role players, best deployed as contrasting notes against more interesting writers or stylists. Together they evoke mismatched NBA superteams — now this is going to be fun, you hope against hope, doing the mental math and writing the fanfiction to delude yourself that the whole is greater than the sum of these mediocre parts.
[2]

Scott Mildenhall: Sometimes less is more, which is useful when you have no real ambition. Central Cee enjoys the spoils of enjoying his spoils — or at least aimlessly announces that he does — supposedly secure in the belief that that is enough to perpetuate them. Lil Baby is more engaging; a tonic to the boorish desperation to seem sorted, but the vaguely ominous vibe is unearned. It doesn’t seem to be what anyone is feeling here — but what do they feel?
[4]