“Cut Chainz off” more like
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[4.33]
David Turner: I’m sure there is some science behind repeating a four-word phrase and having enough melodic sense to get into on a constant loop in one’s mind. I’m sure there is some science, but I don’t care and I’m sure most people don’t when a song enters their head. The phrase takes space that can be welcomed by one’s brain or rejected for a number of reasons. “Cut Her Off,” which has even gotten a New York Times article chiding it, probably sits in a number of people’s minds for an unfortunate reason. The song is in its unedited form would be called “Cut That Bitch Off,” but luckily it is self-edited into a phrase that is never repeated in the radio edit. I type here not to defend the song or the score; it’s a loathsome message amplified by a closer reading of the lyrics.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: This score has nothing to do with anything about women, both because you can’t talk about this shit anymore without invoking the ire of hecklers who ferret through the copy of writers (almost always young writers with burnable bridges, often hecklers who can burn them) for any mockable signs of liberalism, and I’m too worn down by that; and because per the Willis Test there are loads of songs about how it ain’t nothing to cut him off. This score is because the pace is so dreary it manages to make 2 Chainz sound sluggish, which is something.
[3]
Anthony Easton: Can we hire Piketty to do a special Jukebox entry on the problems of capital as suggested by this? Can we suggest to ?uestlove or Yasmin Bey that they set a brother down and point out exactly how this hurts everyone?
[1]
Crystal Leww: I was at a Tink show at a festival of sorts the other day, and before her set, her DJ was playing a few songs to get the crowd pumped up. While I’m standing there boppin’ along to the music, I feel a shove on my back, and I realize some fuckboy is trying to shove his way to the front using sheer force and size. There were a group of girls standing right behind me who were so psyched to see Tink, and I was really pissed about getting shoved so I legitimately went off, Dikembe Mutombo finger wag and all, telling him to back the fuck off and these girls have been standing here and what the fuck is he even trying to accomplish doing, etc. He threw his hands up in surrender and fell back while the girls cheered. The DJ played this song right after, and all the ladies were in the crowd jamming, yelling the words at that idiot, and making the scissors gesture at him as “it ain’t nothin’ to cut that bitch off” was blaring, totally applicable to that situation. And that is what male critics often fail to understand about girls who love hip-hop: art is fluid, art can be interpreted in many ways, art is in the eye of the beholder, art can be re-purposed for the means of others. Even if K Camp and 2 Chainz are males, we should live in an age where “hoes” and “bitch” can apply to whoever we want to, even fuckboys at concerts. These songs can make women feel powerful, too.
[8]
Alfred Soto: If the track had stuck to K Camp’s casual cold ruthlessness I would have awarded it a 7, but 2 Chainz shows how easy it is to sound gross and stupid. “I turn that ho into a frisbee” — what the hell does this even mean?
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: Disgusting. Not even the normally entertaining 2 Chainz can redeem this rape anthem. The music is dull, generic trap, but the lyrics are truly appalling.
[0]