Well, this won’t be controversial now, will it?
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[4.67]
Kat Stevens: Fierce spitting over Kid A B-side sad twilight twinkles! I am intrigued and charmed. I also have a nagging feeling that I should be staring out of the window wondering why life is so unfair, and that Bhad Bhabie is about to knock on my door and ask if I want to come to the pub instead of revising.
[8]
Alex Clifton: This has been stuck in my head with one of the catchiest riffs of the year, but I’ve been mad about it this entire time. I can’t say Bhad Bhabie has any actual charisma, nor any real feeling behind what she raps about — it sounds like she has one emotion, which is permanent anger. The trash-talk isn’t even convincing; Bhad Bhabie likes the word bitch but I can’t tell what, precisely, she wants to tell her haters. Lil Yachty’s verse adds nothing to the song either; it’s just noise after a while. I don’t think it’s my worst song of the year, but it’s not ghood, either.
[2]
Micha Cavaseno: Bhad Bhabie Bregoli is maybe at worst a 2 or 3 on the Soundcloud Rap Richter Scale of Repulsion. Garish as she might be as a personality, she’s kept appropriation to a minimal level, she isn’t a pedophile, she’s not trying to promote excessive drug use for the sake of cultural resonance… perhaps not the highest bar to clear, but in this day and age, you wonder why exactly she gets so much of disdain. She’s already more competent as a rapper than appropriators like Iggy Azalea, and “Gucci Flip Flops” with all of its basic-ness at being a rap banger is ultimately inoffensive. Heck even the Yachty verse is decent. The worst thing you could launch at a record like this is that her perpetual heights seem at best “average,” and maybe the current rap climate is so overloaded that we just don’t need more average rap cluttering up the game.
[5]
Ian Mathers: It almost feels like no matter how you respond, you can’t escape being part of the joke/thinkpiece/problem (delete as appropriate).
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: Every generation gets the Kreayshawn they deserve. Which, I guess, means Generation Z deserves marginally better than millennials did. Or at least they deserve sadder music.
[3]
Julian Axelrod: When I told my friend I’d gotten into Bhad Bhabie, she buried her head in her hands. “Oh no,” she wailed, as if I’d just told her I ran a dog fighting ring out of my basement. Her dismay was understandable, if misplaced — even in an age where our chart-topping rappers hail from Degrassi and Community, apparently Dr. Phil is a step too far. I think a lot of the Bhad Bhabie bhacklash stems from her embodiment of a sea change in rap we’ve long tried to ignore. She’s the byproduct of rap’s last wave of gentrification, the poster child for a generation of white kids in suburbia who had unlimited access to the music of another community’s struggle. In an age where every once-dependable institution has been co-opted by inexperienced outsiders with sinister intentions, it’s only fitting that rappers are getting deals off Instagram stories and viral memes. When rap is as ubiquitous as stop signs and running water, why wouldn’t a white teenager think it’s theirs for the taking? “Gucci Flip Flops” is the moment when the machine gains sentience, and Bhad Bhabie claws her way out of the uncanny valley. She’s not fucking around anymore, and every part of the song serves as a reminder: the unshakable hook, the ominous beat that sounds like the night sky tearing asunder, and the verse from Lil Yachty, self-proclaimed King of the Teens. (Yachty’s brazen defiance of the etched-in-stone rap canon paved the way for Bregoli. He directly precedes her in the fucked up daisy chain of rap’s collapse.) And at the center of it all is Bhad Bhabie, making a meal of every word and spitting it out like she’s smacking gum on the bus. It’s all fake, and it’s nearly indefensible, and I can’t stop listening to it. For all our hand-wringing, this is the soundtrack for our swan dive into hell. If the world is ending, at least we get one final banger.
[7]
Frank Kogan: Eight little notes sit wistfully in the background, leaving her tough and amused and in control of the rhythm — while whatever else is inside her stays inside.
[9]
Jibril Yassin: “Gucci Flip Flops” is no “Hi Bich” but it’s supposed to serve as another reminder that Danielle Bregoli isn’t going anywhere and we brought this upon ourselves. The thrill of listening to Bhad Bhabie stems not from how real she is but how well she raps for a pre-teen, enunciation and flow light years ahead, sometimes outperforming her collaborators. That being said, Yachty tried his best! He’s having fun!
[5]
Rachel Bowles: In the course of writing this review I have learnt some things. 1. “Bhabie” is pronounced “baby” thus 2. Bhad Bhabie and her bhad bhlaccent aren’t coming after Nicki as I had previously feared. 3. It is possible for me to find something involving David Spade mildly amusing. 4. This doesn’t make me a bad person, just a human trying to find a sliver of joy within the nightmarish world of “Gucci Flip Flops.”
[1]