Today, we hop across genres AND continents! Starting off with dancepop from Nigeria…
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[7.00]
Jessica Doyle: Admittedly, Navio doesn’t add a lot, besides the wry “What I know about love? I’m a rapper.” And maybe it goes on a little longer than it should. But the huskiness of Goldie’s voice and the pretty, gauzy beat make you feel sexier for dancing along, and the chorus lands like a waterfall. So you say, “Who is this Goldie? I want to know more.” And that’s when you find out that this is a posthumous release — Goldie died this past spring of a pulmonary embolism, at age 30. And suddenly the abrupt ending of “Miliki” stops being the somewhat witty close of the party (and a possible challenge to DJs) and starts breaking your heart. If she were alive, I’d say I hope the follow-up has an extra trick up its sleeve. But if this is all we’re left with, I’ll take it.
[9]
Will Adams: So much of this reminds me of “On the Floor” — a protagonist surveying the club, a brash rapper who doesn’t really say anything, plucked out Euro synths — but without the maximalist production that made J.Lo’s song so fun and ridiculous. The subtler production in “Miliki” isn’t a bad thing at all in and of itself, but in this case it only makes the songwriting’s lack of substance more apparent (with the exception of the brilliant “get down on it” hook).
[5]
Anthony Easton: This might be the best song about fuckability I have heard this year. The pressing/pushing, the overarching, the rhythm that is just on the right side of stutter/stop, the overwhelming formal pleasure, the almost liquid quality without being as sticky as you remember, and of course that chorus. Press up on it, get down on it, indeed.
[9]
Crystal Leww: “Miliki” goes on about a minute too long for the type of dancefloor jam that it aspires to, but it does the formula well. This synth-fueled start and stop still sounds hot, especially when the vocals are inhabited by warmth rather than the iciness that seems to be more trendy these days.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Feather-light and throwaway seduction jam, its quality levels overshadowed somewhat by the sad tale of the artist’s passing.
[4]
Iain Mew: Is it knowing what was to come that gives this such an edge of sadness? The verses are party familiar club pop and Navio provides good time joking with even a couple of memorable lines. Yet come the chorus, Goldie’s breathless calls to “forever” and the soft synth hum that surrounds them, it sure feels like gorgeous melancholy must have been the idea all along.
[8]
Brad Shoup: When we weren’t looking, Navio turned in a sterling pop-rap appearance, maybe the best I’ve heard this year. “Let’s go somewhere remote/control me”, “What I know about love?/I’m a rapper”, “I get old school/I might fax ya”: rarely does staying in one’s lane generate this much fun. Not to take away from Goldie, who douses a RedOne-style club-pop concoction with a breathy sensuality. She starts at the spot, luxuriating in her surroundings. (“I’m the artist, you are my muse” is the line of note.) She exhales in consumed Donna Summer mode, slides into her higher register, and the roof pops off.
[8]
Alfred Soto: I’m wondering what the hell Navio’s doing on a pretty good dance track that stops just short of being insidious, but the twitchy electrobeat hints at Middle Eastern timbres that sound at home in Miami, Barcelona, or Jerusalem clubs.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: She was just getting started; the progression from “Jawo” to “Don’t Touch” to “Skibobo” to this is that of an unformed but highly talented and deeply magnetic performer finding not only her voice but the best way to present her beautiful and wildly creative musical imagination to the world. Alive to do promotion, “Miliki” could have been a pan-African, maybe even a European hit; instead it’s become only a memorial, without even as many YouTube views as her previous single. It deserves to be a hit, though; those impossible lush synths, intermingling with her breathy voice on the chorus, represents not merely an aspirational kind of African music — most pop music worldwide is aspirational, that’s what makes it pop — but one that can go toe-to-toe for sonic depth and imaginative drive with any producer from Stockholm, Tokyo, Seoul, Miami, or L.A.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: A global dance truffle: hard RedOne-adjacent beats enclosing a chorus and voice that melts. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but on the spectrum from formula to fire it’s more toward the far end than, say, Inna. It may be the far end.
[7]