You heard that, fhqwhgads?
[Video]
[6.64]
Dave Moore: Did anyone link the Homestar Runner mash-up already? Sometimes you really shouldn’t overthink these things.
[4]
Nortey Dowuona: The riffling percussion that resembles a money counter sounds fantastic. It’s the most consistent part of the beat where certain elements drop for emphasis or beauty, and it’s the rhythm that allows the rest of the drums to settle perfectly into place. Once it gets dropped out at 1:49 and the beat gets filled with a neat taptaptap of handclaps to build up to the last kick drop, it feels so open and relaxing, especially since there’s no plinky chords to settle onto, just Tyler’s gleeful baritone and the searing synth line, then it all drops out and that dirriah! drops back into the song, setting you up to do a neat little spin move. Stop playing with that guy.
[8]
TA Inskeep: It’s not just the leather warm-up suit giving me L.L. Cool J vibes here; “Playing” sounds like it could fit in nicely on Walking with a Panther. Hyperkinetic and loose and a blast.
[6]
Claire Biddles: Weird that baby boy chose this as the single because it’s the most throwaway song on an album where the value of cheap thrills is kinda the whole point. Even in his most casual moments Tyler rarely sounds like he’s warming up, but here his lyrics and flow fail to meet his usual high bar of finesse. Kills me to mark him this low but it’s only because I know he can do better! Tyler I still love you!
[5]
Julian Axelrod: Tyler, the Creator has never not wanted a Grammy. He said as much during the Goblin/Wolf era, he switched to a more palatable sound on Flower Boy, he circled back to rub it in a hater’s face after he finally won, and then he went ahead and won another. And yet, Chromakopia felt like another Grand Award-Worthy Statement from an artist who’s been crafting Grand Award-Worthy Statements for so long that he forgot how to just make an album. Enter DON’T TAP THE GLASS and “Stop Playing with Me,” which is more concerned with making you move than making you think. I think I prefer Tyler in this looser mode: His snarled threats carry more bite, his bare and brittle beats hit harder, and his laser-minded focus feels more concentrated when it’s not being pulled in a million different directions. But he’s not sacrificing emotion for energy; rather, the minimalist trappings show his frustration at being fucked with in a starker light. I don’t know if he’ll snag a Grammy for this song, but the fact that he doesn’t seem to care is a win in itself.
[7]
Andrew Karpan: I like the different voices Tyler tries out, a longtime pleasure of his records that he only seems to tap into when he isn’t thinking about it too much.
[7]
Claire Davidson: It’s nice to hear Tyler, the Creator pair his playfully egocentric bars with some real drive, and “Stop Playing with Me” moves with surprising fervor, pairing rapid-fire synths reminiscent of sirens with a purposefully static-tinged, flattened bass beat, creating a sonic edge that adds even more acid to Tyler’s presence. The problem, though, is that, for as funny as Tyler’s casually outlandish insults can be (“Fuck you and your dreams!”), when brevity is the name of the game, as it is here, his penchant for affected taunting without real cleverness reads as more distracted than charmingly energetic. Tyler can be a more authoritative voice when he wants to be; imagine the song’s impact if he fully committed to that intensity.
[7]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Obviously, obnoxiously one of the great rappers of our time. Here, he emulates Nicki Minaj at her most brilliantly irritating, using a supreme command of attention to say a very impressive amount of nothing. He jukes us a bit — two quick, straightforward verses before a third where he stretches out a bit, going singsong and theatrical, cramming lines into the flimsy construction of the song like he couldn’t have possibly produced a better container. He’s rapped better many times in his career (as recently as earlier last month!), but he’s never sounded more self-satisfied with what he’s making.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The synthesized buzz suggests Dizzee Rascal’s early work and the truculence recalls the Tyler of yore, skilled with quasi-autobiographical narrative but terrific with putdowns.
[7]
Holly Boson: Big Poe is both a dusty rap name from the yes-yes-y’all prehistory and a reminder of Edgar Allen – the alter-ego speaks in corny LL-isms but deep down is a beast, the embodiment of a Yo! MTV Raps episode once you know MC Hammer actually WAS involved with the streets, simultaneously ineffectual and threatening. I’m never going to say anything bad about this because it’s agony for me that it got overshadowed online by that worthless AI chum by the guy with the account full of videos of him fucking produce. That might be because the fake song is a lot catchier than this, even if it is also a lot worse. But it’s more that the internet finds it easier to find things to shit on than to enjoy body movement, and that feels like an inevitable punchline to Big Poe’s big joke, begging “stop playing with me” so puffed up with comic ego that it’s obvious nobody’s ever going to stop playing with him.
[7]
Ian Mathers: It’s always when an artist you think is cool and interesting and talented but have never really viscerally fell for their music puts out a song where you’re just like… oh, there it is. Which means after three [7]s in a row from me, he’s finally broken through.
[8]