THE TWO LEGENDARY COLLABORATORS RECOLLABORATE ON THIS COLLABORATION~!!…
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[5.58]
Alfred Soto: Grant Miguel this: he’s loyal. The throbbing electrobass and lovedrunk Cole don’t mitigate the stupidity of the scenario: are we supposed to care that Cole tripped in an Applebee’s?
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: “Can’t help but feeling like I dropped the ball/cliche” is the first time in a very, very long time hashtag rap has wowed me, but there is more to “Power Trip” than one great line. J. Cole’s production strikes a great balance between laid back (courtesy of that breezy flute sample from Hubert Laws) and electric, which is a great backdrop for J. Cole’s lusting-but-unrequited rapping. The only problem here is that Miguel seems sorta wasted in his guest spot.
[7]
Anthony Easton: I feel like Miguel’s voice is a little boring and lacks a tiny bit of substance… passable but he doesn’t wow me.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Something weird happened last year: I stopped changing the station when “Work Out” came on. I guess J.’s turd-pushing delivery became endearing. In producing his own song, he gets immersive to a fault. His Hubert Laws sample offers playfulness, but it’s not unspooled half as well as his mentor’s But that’s Reasonable Doubt, and this is pop — the chorus is more than a break between sixteens. Miguel get his crack, does OK, then Cole brings it home with that shudderbass. All good, except for the verses, which drown Cole’s truce between Drake and middle-period Nas.
[6]
Will Adams: It’s baffling that Miguel is mixed so low, especially when his hook is the only respite from the verses’ lethargic rhythm track.
[4]
Crystal Leww: Miguel has never sounded worse singing “Would you believe me if I said I was in love?” No, I don’t believe you. For a song about his “longest crush ever”, J. Cole spends a surprisingly small amount of time actually talking about her. You can play the suddenly successful dude who is still pathetically hung up over the girl who got away, but you have to do it well.
[2]
Jer Fairall: Why get an actual singer to appear on your track if a) you’re gonna relegate his presence to something only slightly more substantial than Janelle Monae’s on “We Are Young,” and b) you’re going to insist on singing the (already quite weak) hook yourself anyway?
[4]
Scott Mildenhall: Believably sad, though anyone would be miserable if someone was playing that drooping flute line over every thought they had, as if it was the theme from Tarrant On TV or something. Of course it’s not as good as the Tarrant On TV theme — little is — but where the host of that programme was smug, J. Cole is broken, worn out to the point of implosion. In song, at least, that works strongly in his favour.
[7]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Miguel is an accessory here, making this potentially the only time in his life he’s been outsung, but it’s a welcome sideshow. This is all Cole’s show, from the percolating bass and Hubert Laws flute loop to his bouncy command of his flow and lyrics depicting uneasy almost-relationships. It helps that he sounds less like Drake-Lite on this than his other endeavours in ladies’ jams thus far. You may even say he sounds like himself.
[7]
Sabina Tang: Miguel is barely in play here, but the warm sample (which I found arresting enough to track down in its own right) and stutter-throb bass effectively underpin J.Cole’s serviceable delivery. The girl is power-tripping on him, he claims, but offers neither specific proof nor displaced venom. “This has got to be the longest crush ever,” he says, resigned, then puts on the imaginary-BFF hat and advises himself to get rid of temptation by giving in. All in all, it’s hard to feel too down about one’s romantic travails when the lounge is spinning Hubert Laws on a Wednesday night.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: J. Cole continues his string of canny collaborations and well-curated sample beds. But if you’ve got Miguel, why would you let yourself sprechgesang your hook?
[4]
Andy Hutchins: Last time these two connected, it was for Miguel’s “All I Want Is You,” in which Cole played the slick-talking lover left in the cold; that was Cole’s first big R&B feature beyond his own work, and showed how deft he could be removed from rap, because it checked for him and not Miguel. Now, Cole’s first single (or, rather, the first one that will do anything at radio) off his second album has post-“Adorn” Miguel paying back the favor with a superb hook that fits another tale of longing, and has Cole laying as far back as his flow will go and doing the narrative of “the longest crush ever” justice with the sorts of corny things Cole has probably said (“Ass stupid, how you get to college?”) and the acknowledgement that he’s not actually built to do much but love. The production’s his own, and it’s adequately sweet and tormented, much like “Dreams” (another creepy, compelling love song, and one apparently about the same girl) was, but the product as a whole is the song I’ve been waiting for Cole to make for about three years. All it took was a little growing into who he’s always been.
[8]