On the Kevin Gates scale, the US only added jobs for 46,666 people last month…
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[5.60]
Crystal Leww: Kevin Gates has been around for a couple of years now, and while he’s turned in worthy mixtape work, the single that he’s desperately needed to showcase his personality and break onto rap radio has eluded him. “I Don’t Get Tired” is exactly the right kind of introduction for Gates, and its subject matter is fitting for the constantly rapping and featuring Gates. Rap songs about lifting yourself up are will always be inspiring to me, and Gates’s details here, from his consideration of fatherhood being a full-time job to the stale Rice Krispies feeling like sand and gravel really provide the necessary context for his history and values. It’s necessary to note that Gates does the hook himself despite having August Alsina available for it. It’s an important detail, and Gates’ repeated assertion that he has six jobs and that he doesn’t get tired gives this track the energy that makes you believe his hustle. Alsina’s part, which is relegated to atmospheric harmonizing and a brief break in the bridge, fits the song well, too. His silky smoothness is there for only the briefest break from the relentless energy that Gates brings to the track. “I Don’t Get Tired” is produced by rnbass production god Nic Nac, who trades in the hollow slinky synths of his normal sound for something driven. It suits the tone. It suits Gates.
[9]
Megan Harrington: Kevin Gates biggest challenge is that — despite being an incredibly compelling rapper able to convey candor in a persona dominant era — he’s often boring. This is a function of both his reliance on basic, unflashy production and refusal to write a hook. “I Don’t Get Tired” sacrifices some of what makes Gates unique for a song that’s radio viable.
[7]
Micha Cavaseno: The ultimate in inexplicable yet reasonable unions; a man with the growl of an ogre, and a singer with the posture of one. This is Gates in “skruggle anthem” mode, a realm he consistently dips into with little to no success when his greatest domain will ever be microscopic detail and navel-gazing introspection, not anthemic universality. No man who sells codeine-themed energy drinks or tries to get groupies to sleep with his therapy dog could ever be a voice for the everyman. Yet despite his bizarre antics and one-of-a-kind persona (Gates is, to this day, probably the only rapper I’ve seen claim he took the vow of the Nazarite), his charisma sells this to impressive degrees and he can put in a decent try. August Alsina, on the other hand, has nothing to sell because the only struggle he’s going through is finding the effort to breathe long enough to sing notes for more than three seconds and getting himself a personality once and for all after he got booted out the ol’ golem factory.
[3]
Andy Hutchins: Less an anthem, more a portal to a time when mixtapes featured songs like this. Gates uses his imposing voice to smack tracks, even ones with Halloween soundtrack synths, with syllables like concrete, and rapping like a locomotive (“Six weeks ago, I just purchased a foreign/Most likely the one that you cannot afford/Right foot on the gas/Balenciaga be accelerating, I’m doing the dash”) only accentuates how singular he is. One problem: Everyone here forgot that August Alsina sounds tired by the end of every bar.
[7]
Ramzi Awn: Full disclosure: I do get tired. I get tired of half-baked rap songs wasting my time. Don’t have that cigar just yet.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Responsible for two of my favorite hip hop songs of the last half decade, Kevin Gates returns with an aspirational anthem, pressing hard on the monosyllabic stresses. It doesn’t resonate beyond its display of forehead sweat.
[5]
David Sheffieck: So this is the world we live in now, one where having to work multiple jobs isn’t an indictment of a fucked-up system so much as something to boast about? We could do worse than to adopt Gates’s anthem as a motivational anthem for the new economy, but the hoarseness in his voice suggests just how draining never taking time for sleep can be.
[7]
Brad Shoup: I’m sorry… I can’t hear this song without thinking of Chris Brown’s Instagram, and that’s on Kevin.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Competent enough, like the competent-enough work one does for job five while the weight of jobs one through five bulldozes toward you, like the somatic weight of sleeping pills one, two ,and three whose effects one’s shoved out of the bloodstream in one ongoing Sisyphean night ritual, because one does not get tired because one cannot afford to. That work is never great. The petulance and the grind gets into it, but they don’t make it good.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: The overwork is showing: he may not be tired, but he ain’t very excited, either.
[5]