Only I may touch the Raf…
[Video]
[4.86]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: The most interesting thing about A$AP Rocky is his bromance with Raf Simons. Lil Uzi Vert is more exciting than most rappers right now. Quavo’s recent work ethic has led to countless forgettable verses. Frank Ocean is one of the most overrated artists of the decade and is at times laughably bad. I went into “RAF” believing all these things and I came out of it feeling validated.
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: Frank Ocean is a terrible rapper. A$AP Rocky is doing a perfect Young Thug impression here. This is the Young Thug single Jeff needs to be making rather than doing pointless autotuned country records that sound like Nelly. Quavo really needed to come to this song without the busy year he’s been having so he could do the performance he’s capable of. Lil Uzi Vert is having the time of his life, as is Carti who’s relegated to adlib duties? Poor decision in my opinion. Frank Ocean is a terrible rapper. It’s wild how a song that’s so overtly dedicated to styles pioneered in Atlanta now contains maybe only two rappers who are actually from Atlanta, one who’s signed to a collective based in NYC, and that’s perfectly normal for the moment. Such is rap’s weirdly shifting sense of collectivism. By the way, Frank Ocean? Terrible Rapper.
[5]
Hannah Jocelyn: It’s worth checking out Ocean’s verse towards the end, arriving on a wave of reverb, bringing a classy yet rambling flow that still makes room for silliness like “RAF dragging on the [awkward pause] floor, biiiiiiiiiiiitch.” Otherwise, you know what this sounds like already.
[5]
Julian Axelrod: It’s weird to call him underrated in any capacity, but I genuinely don’t think Frank Ocean the Rapper gets enough credit. While he doesn’t show up often, his guest turns on songs like Earl Sweatshirt’s “Sunday” (one of my favorite verses of the last five years) sparkle with the same tender bravura he displays on his albums. It’s weird to hear him on this distinctly 2017 posse cut, removed from the strictly defined aesthetic of his Odd Future features. He sounds pleasantly out of place next to the likes of Uzi and Quavo, like A$AP Rocky’s kindly old uncle who happened to be wandering through the studio. But the track is warped enough to accommodate Frank’s impressionistic fragments and halting flow. (“Xans and water, see swordfish” is the kind of line that sounds normal at first and gets more mystifying as you turn it over in your head.) You can almost imagine him singing the same words on a hushed acoustic ballad. No matter what he’s doing, Frank Ocean can only sound like himself.
[7]
Ryo Miyauchi: The year 2017, the year of hip-hop narcosis, at its peak. All it’s missing is Future, though you can make a case of his spiritual presence in Dun Deal’s flute. Neither enamored, proud, nor pained by their gallery of brand-name collections, a trapping of luxury or celebrity this certainly isn’t. Everyone here sounds more bored than anything else.
[5]
Austin Brown: In which some of the biggest reasons for hip-hop’s current prioritization of musicality and atmosphere over bar-for-bar lyricism come together and lay down a straightforward posse cut, of all things. Dun Deal’s beat, while eerily reminiscent of Murda’s on Drake’s “Portland” at certain points, sets the scene and leaves plenty of space for rappity-rapping. Unfortunately, only Frank Ocean seems to take the bait, leaving everyone else in the dust. These are all skilled musicians, masters of flow, and expert songsmiths. But here it feels like Frank is the only one with a love of language.
[5]
Crystal Leww: Songs with a lot of marquee names in rap are hard to do despite how often they actually do occur. Frank Ocean is not a good rapper, despite what the comments would like you to believe, but his little section on this is sufficiently different and good at accentuation that it stands out next to everyone else, who just sounds like they are trying to flex but mostly just getting drowned out next to each other.
[3]