Cooking together…
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[7.30]
Michelle Ofiwe: Bye, I love this song. 2014 was the year of “Paranoid,” “Loyal,” and similar upbeat club bops popularizing one-liners about never trusting women. 2015 will (hopefully) take on the complete opposite. Rap needs more songs about girlfriends, wives, partners — and no, I don’t mean in that “my bitch makes your bitch look like Precious” kinda way (nice try, Kanye). Fetty’s lady in question starts off as his companion, but once he “introduce[s] her to [his] stove” she begins to make money on her own hustle, which he actually admires: hence the name of the song. They break keys, cop whips, and make it rain in the club together. It’s not a perfect song by any rate, and isn’t some blazing champion of gender equality in rap music, but it’s a welcomed alternative to whatever one-liner Ty Dolla $ign has y’all screaming in the club these days.
[8]
Iain Mew: I’ve never introduced anyone to my stove, but I love and relate to the idea of relationship as a team victory. Looking at your partner’s successes and feeling happy for them is an awesome feeling! So is knowing that you supported them to get there in some way. The trilling synth frenzy and Fetty Wap’s urgent delivery help to turn the sentiment into the celebration it deserves to be.
[8]
Alfred Soto: On first listen “I wanna introduce you to my stove” sounds like the preemptive measure of a wannabe asshole (“Now here’s where we keep the vacuum cleaner,” my great aunt once said her husband told her seventy years ago). But introduced to the hustle she gradually bests him. They’re in it together but she plays for keeps. Before the all-chorus hook gets irritating, Fetty and the trap queen become the Nick and Nora Charles of the game.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: I don’t know the last time I heard such a joyful performance from a dude singing in US English. The production keeps up, switching the dynamics frequently enough that it never feels like a grind, and instead puts me on mine.
[8]
Will Adams: The show-stopping production excites when it first bursts through, but then it lingers and begins to overwhelm.
[6]
Brad Shoup: A playful melody, ground like sugar crystals into molars.
[5]
Ian Mathers: The first 90 seconds or so of “Trap Queen,” Fetty Wap’s slightly T-Pained wail is so relentless that it’s kind of disappointing when he briefly raps instead. The song never really regains that momentum, especially during some closing bravado from some other dude, but that the core here is solid, and I keep rewinding that first segment.
[7]
David Sheffieck: These are truly fascinating times, this post-Young Thug era we’re living in. That Fetty never quite matches his opening line(s) is secondary to his leftfield charisma and the lyric’s goofy romanticism. And to the beat, which sounds like a spaceship prepping for a trip to Mars. I don’t know how much further things can go in this direction — and I’m sure at some point we’ll hit diminishing returns — but I’m loving the way that voices and sounds that would’ve been unimaginable two or three years ago are now hitting the top of the charts.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: Fetty Wap is based in Paterson, New Jersey, yet he raps in a style so overtly based in the works of Future and Gucci Mane that he seems like yet another of the Futuristic artists like Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, Skooly, or whoever else had success in the South by using Auto-Tune and singing about dealing drugs. That in itself, representing the regional erosion preached by the tragically departed A$AP Yams and his many fictitious characters is an event. Lyrically the song is neither here nor there, and the beat is generic. But what really makes the song a hit is Fetty’s approach to the auto-goon flow. His showtunes-esque “YEAAAAAAAAAH!!!”s are so triumphant, and his voice plummets and yowls with true enthusiasm beneath his chrome-plated Antares shell. Somewhere some impersonator of a writer is complaining that this will be “just another boy singing about his feelings.” YOU’RE GOD DAMN RIGHT, AND THAT’S WHY OTHER PEOPLE (myself included) LOVE IT.
[9]
Crystal Leww: Fetty Wap is sweet without being condescending, truly the rap dude who doesn’t claim to want to take care of you or pay for your shit but wants to make money with his baby as a duo, as a partnership. The synths blast off into outer space in the chorus, and it’s appropriate for such a jubilant celebration of his baby.
[9]