Logged out of his MySpace page since 2010…
[Video][Website]
[5.88]
Iain Mew: The sample and the treatment of it, placed between two mirrors and reflecting into infinity, is brilliant. I identified it as Rihanna right away but couldn’t place where it was from even though I know “Live Your Life.” YP I like in places, including the way he says mind like “maahnd”, but I keep getting caught up on the line “whipping their hair back and forth like Willow Smith.” It’s just backwards, shoehorning in a reference which isn’t clever or funny because the line doesn’t work as anything other than a way of delivering that reference.
[6]
Brad Shoup: YP leans on his best Cartman to revive the venerated “mind on my money/money on my mind” couplet; he does OK. There’s something breezily old-school about his flow, the way he knocks out those two-word line-ending rhymes. It’s like a less-cocky T.I., which is a dangerous effect when you’re lifting his track. The Bangladesh-style vocal stacking (livinlivinlivinl-livin) gets dropped to the extreme background, with a retro bassline riddled with ellipses receiving the promotion.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: The slice-and-dice take on “Live Your Life” is the best part about “Want Money,” Rihanna’s voice turned into a stuttering backdrop. YP, though, doesn’t take advantage of this great production and instead just runs through ho-hum variations of “I have lots of money.”
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: His facility overpowers his not-particularly-cleverness, with too many clichés tripping by quickly enough that they almost work. Unfortunately, the chopped-up Rihanna sample that serves as chorus is too unmusical to really work as a hook, and the identikit production makes me wonder if he’s so obsessed with accumulating money that he refused to splurge for a decent beat.
[5]
Josh Langhoff: Producer Tony Baines plays a deliciously out-of-tune synth bassline, Rihanna’s voice wavers in and out of consciousness like the hum of a fluorescent light, and YP discusses finance in ways that are sometimes excruciatingly old — cf. the sub-Economist quip, “I’m the only ryder not related to Winona.” Still, the ryderiness in his voice brings his bank statement to life.
[6]
Anthony Easton: I like the stuttering, anxiety of the “money” choruses that works as a tension at oblique angles to the verses — and the verses themselves, with nested metaphors and self-congratulatory inside baseball is more interesting than it should be.
[7]
Alfred Soto: His tone evokes T.I.’s, which makes sense considering the sample. But he doesn’t illuminate a tired trope.
[6]
Andy Hutchins: Capable rapping over a compelling beat, but that hook is fantastic and proof that you really can’t go wrong sampling “Live Your Life.”
[6]