Kids today! They don’t respect nuthin’!

[Video][Website]
[4.67]

Scott Mildenhall: It sounds like the most familiar sample in the world, but apparently it isn’t one. “Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh-woah-oh”. It’s like something non-British football fans might chant. “Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh-woah-oh”. “Oh-woah-oh-woah-oh-woah-oh”. Is it a sample? It’s very good. Example’s lyrics aren’t, not always, but the sketchier here (“we don’t need Nintendos or Adeedas”) are at a minimum, and the overall theme is well sold. It even stretched to a somehow really affecting string version on the radio recently. But is that a sample?
[8]

Iain Mew: The line I keep getting caught on is the one where Example throws away adult responsibilities, or at least where it feels like such a line should go. “We don’t need Nintendos or Adidas”. I’ll call Adidas neutral in maturity terms but Nintendo’s childish image has been as much a hindrance as help to it for a long time. Plus who has called them “Nintendos”, company name plural, since about when Example was a child? The paradox comes off like a sneaky acknowledgement that the childhood he’s romanticising never even existed, or that he never really moved on from it to begin with. Read it that way, and it adds depth to a simplistic lyric. Of course, you could put it down as bad writing instead, but in the face of the song and its constant, desperate movement I want to give the benefit of any doubt. It’s a prime example of how great Example he is at sounding like he’s dancing away the pain.
[7]

Anthony Easton: I keep edging against this idea that being a kid is fun as opposed to angry, or scared, or bored, or threatened. Acting like kids again would be risking losing serious autonomy, but I have said all this before. What I really appreciate about the song, then is less the not well thought out lyrics and more the oceanic, burble of sound against the rasp of his voice. 
[4]

Alfred Soto: I’m opposed on principle to grown men — it’s always grown men — who pine for their childhood as if it were a more innocent time or something. Fortunately the production on this pneumatic thumper was generic when young Elliot Gleave watched “Top of the Pops.”
[4]

Brad Shoup: I imagine Lana Del Rey listening to this and laughing so hard. This could surely be the theme to some EDM children’s cartoon: latently existential, super literal, the adult conviction that you’re not really appreciating life, man. But whatever: you swiped your hook from Coldplay!
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: Hey, wanna feel old!? The bulk of this song is the sort of poppycock you expect Jaden Smith to Tweet, but the line that struck me was the one about Nintendo because…uhhhhh, growing up video games were totally equated with kids, it was a total “those children and their Sonic The Hedgehog” thing. Example inadvertently reveals how much has changed since the ’90s, because now video games are (in his mind) just tools of distractions for all ages. It’s a weird detail that stuck with me. Throw the rest out though.
[3]

Ramzi Awn: Oh boy. What a chorus. If this is what being a kid again feels like, I’m pretty sure I’ll stick to being an adult.    
[3]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: STIRLING STORIES, CHAPTER TWO. (Chapter one here.) Once upon a time, Example was on Mike Skinner’s label The Beats, alongside Professor Green – I have a Hip Hop Connection issue from 2007 with both on the cover somewhere in my attic, but ANYWAY. He was pretty likeable back then, a goofy guy with the handy Skinner co-sign and a penchant for fun interviews, but on the grounds of Stirling University, he was the shit. A bunch of girls on campus had What We Made on lock, which surprised me, knowing that a lot of them had no time for any other hip-hop. I grew a little snooty, playing as much non-Example hip-hop as I could on my radio show in a sense of quiet protest. Things got so desperate, I think I played some Slaughterhouse once. Without knowing it, I had become one of those Real Hip-Hop dudes I hated, the types who would tell me non-ironically that the genre was dead, the types who would use my Peruvian heritage as an entry point to talk and talk and talk about Immortal Fucking Technique. I fell back pretty quick – Example could keep the campuses of Stirling Uni without me thrashing and raging about it. Hip-hop has a space for everyone, and that’s fine as long as we allowed other spaces to co-exist. EPILOGUE: Example somehow started making EDM Pet Shop Boys songs, which was actually a pretty good look for him. Also, Soulja Boy saved hip-hop, but that’s another chapter.
[7]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Total paint-by-numbers. Generic can be fun sometimes, but this drags and lopes; the singer sounds like he needs a nap.
[3]