Alas, today they only won second place…
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[4.78]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: In a 2008 interview with Hip Hop Connection — *pours one out for the best hip-hop mag ever* — El-P talks about where he gets the inspiration to craft music that goes way over people’s heads. “I listen to Radiohead and I’m like ‘This is my shit,’ but I can’t tell you what the fuck he’s saying… there’s a beauty to that, ‘cos it makes you want to fuckin’ submerge into that world.” I use that quote when I tell people about Future Hendrix. He’s an unavoidable presence who can certainly rap but seems focused on how to melt words down into cackles of emotion. Contrarians argue that he doesn’t offer up traditionalist hip-hop bona fides, but he’s got great lines for days — lines that burst bloom and bluster, even when we can’t tell what the fuck he’s saying. On “I Won,” he’s mumbly and randy and respectful throughout, but he hits that one great line and marinates in it: “I KNOW IT’S BECAUSE OF ME.” He’s talking about his beau’s ass getting bigger, but the bravado falls off that statement before it finishes. Then, the pride falls off with that first repetition. After that, he bellows the line once more like he’s just realised this horny little vignette is also a sign of affection and trust: it’s because of me! You catch a glimpse of the artist at his most legible, and there are still layers underneath it. There’s plenty to fuckin’ submerge into.
[8]
Thomas Inskeep: What does everyone see in this guy? He’s T-Pain 2.0, easy as that. Some occasionally half-decent songs and a vocoder, and that’s about it. This is not one of the occasionally half-decent songs, and is dragged down even further by an excruciating Kanye verse.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: It’s almost mean how Future invites Kanye West to a song where he flaunts how far he’s taken the 808s and Heartbreak sound. Lyrically, this isn’t anything interesting, and misguided in its admiration of a significant other, boiling the woman down to a prize. Kanye, letting his voice just hang out there, delivers a rank verse that makes Future sound better in every regard — Future’s misguided metaphor comes off way better after West brags that he beat out professional athletes for Kim — but hurts the song overall. But with Future, it’s all about how words sound, not just the literal meaning. “I Won” sounds earnest and heartfelt, from Future’s Auto-Tune warbles to the delicate production turning noise-complaint sex sessions into end-credit splendor.
[7]
Anthony Easton: Even though this is under four minutes, it is sinuous, expansive and almost holy. Avoid the bad puns and worse sex jokes, think about the music — a horn line that slides over and under, with memories of Alice Coltrane as arranger. It has all the marks of Kanye — the formal innovation, the sexual desecration of religious traditions, the astute collection of producers, and a general audaciousness — but gets points for a modest concision.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: If it weren’t for Yelping Orgasm Girl, this could be a Delerium track. (Hell, some of his peers would’ve left her in.) That’s infinitely more interesting to me than the celebsploitation.
[5]
Crystal Leww: Around the time that Honest came out, there were calls for more reviews of the record by women, something that I strongly agreed with until someone pointed out that this really only happens when a rap record comes out. I spent the next day or so wondering if the calls for female reviews stem from the same bullshit racism that results in well-intentioned but ultimately unfair critiques of sexism in hip hop. However, it’s impossible to not think about the women behind Yeezus and Nothing Was the Same and Honest. The obvious female subjects of these albums are public figures. Kim K, Rihanna, and Ciara were themselves before their rapper boyfriends, and we had opinions about them as individuals. “I Won” fails because it relies too much on cliché rather than specifics, turning these women into shadows of themselves. Ciara is not just a trophy for Future to win, she’s also the cool older sister you’ve had since 2004. The generic quality of the music doesn’t just do a disservice to the subjects — it also loses sight of Future and Kanye’s core competencies. Their brands of weird affection made them into the superstars they are today. When “I Won” came out, and the video depicted Future and Kanye intercut with the usual beach shots of anonymous girls, it seems insincere and disingenuous, the exact antithesis of Future’s weird askronaut love philosophy. To be clear, the goal is not to make music that resembles a gossip magazine (Kanye calls out Kim’s sisters; this is still boring), but to humanize, to make concrete, to understand the women behind the images. This is simply not believable. I’d rather listen to “Body Party.”
[4]
Alfred Soto: It doesn’t matter how sympathetic Future sounds, how empathetically Metro Boomin’ arranges those strings: the pro-woman sentiments turn to drivel when Kanye rhymes “trophy wife” with “trophy life” as if the mark of a good woman is the degree to which she commodifies herself, which in this case means adjusting herself to Kanye’s ideals of beauty (Manolo boots, “putting” an “angel” in her).
[4]
Brad Shoup: Maybe “I wanna be a trophy” would be too nice-guy, but it’s fun to pretend. The tracks goes tender and speeds up like a heartbeat, the piano’s underwater enough not to be cloying. I’m not going to gun for my male-critic merit badge, so I’ll just say that the image of Future redoing the hallway so he and Ciara can huff paint is priceless. Essentially, Kanye and Future just wrote the most demographically narrow wedding-reception song of all time.
[3]
Mallory O’Donnell: Get lost, creeps.
[1]