Malaysia’s first appearance on the Jukebox!
[Video][Website]
[4.67]
Madeleine Lee: “Tepi Sikit” is almost a great song. Technically, it gets everything right: both rappers and singer have a smooth, rhythmically varied flow, and the instrumental is well-built and thoughtfully mixed, with the kind of string and bass lines that should make your heart stir. But for the most part, it’s too timid, too careful to stay tasteful. Then, at the bridge, the beat drops away for a verse before coming back with every instrumental sample in its arsenal all at once. This too is a rote move, down to the timing of the crescendo, but it’s the first time that the track dares to take up some space beyond what’s polite, and the first time it passes merely pleasant to hint at its heart-stirring, breathtaking potential.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: Glad overwrought rap-ballads are a global force now.
[3]
Brad Shoup: A Malay hip-hop lullaby, a chart-rap clone. Unlike, say, Flizzow’s work in Too Phat, we’re drenched in this super-professional stuff. At least Eminem would throw us a guitar.
[3]
Megan Harrington: The Kanye strings tell me “Tepi Sikit” is a story about a girl and the sacrifices SleeQ (and Joe Flizzow, who echoes their sentiments) just couldn’t make to save their love. Those strings speak a universal language — impatient tears, ambivalent regret — and SleeQ’s sensitive R&B coupled with Flizzow’s clever bars (the Picasso/Escobar line is as universal as the strings) makes for a compelling retelling of a stock story.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: Anyone can do slick, but not everyone can do friction, and “Tepi Sikit” is enough of the former to sound competent, but not enough of the latter to be actually memorable once it’s over. Not to say that it doesn’t have some cool sounds — the ratatat beats and the way the strings cascade and intermittently drop out is a delicately placed touch, and nothing in the vocals beats it for that kind of change-up or tension. The chorus is a bit of an aimless wail too.
[5]
Jonathan Bradley: Such a transparent reproduction of “Live Your Life” illustrates how difficult it is to get this stadium inspo-rap right; Joe Flizzow is no slouch as a rapper and his contribution to “Tepi Sikit” is both precise and conversational. But he lacks the marvellous control of syntax and syllables possessed by T.I., and he can’t transform this song’s watery strings and snare taps into something gravity-defying.
[5]