Nigerian’s 2019 single gets some belated chart interest…
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[6.50]
Nina Lea: As Rolling Stone recently reported, “Love Nwantiti” has a fascinating story, demonstrative of the ways that the hashtag-and-trend-driven TikTok ecosystem can both vault a song into the stratosphere while simultaneously ripping art away from its creator. The most popular version of “Love Nwantiti” on TikTok didn’t originally credit CKay, creating a vacuum where other artists tried to take credit for the song. Importantly, the popularized clip remixed “Love Nwantiti” to make it slower, more echoey, and worse. CKay’s original is effortlessly sweet, but the melody floats over an uptempo beat that propels the track forward, breathing with a lightness that the weighed-down, plodding remix lacks. Without TikTok, we might not have this song, but at the same time, the app nearly silenced its creator and ruined the track.
[6]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The acoustic guitar loop is an earsore– it’s not bad in a vacuum, but it distracts from the beauty of CKay’s melody to an extent that it threatens to bring the whole song down. The piano remix solves most of those problems; here, less is more.
[6]
Oliver Maier: So silky as to pass more or less unnoticed. Four or five listens into this I find it genuinely difficult to pay attention to.
[4]
Mark Sinker: A sleeper rising quietly and slantwise through the world’s dreaming all-connected portals, to a love that suits it.
[9]
Juana Giaimo: I love how all the elements fit each other like a puzzle, and I’ll never not love the sound of an arpeggiated acoustic guitar joined by a nice soft beat. The vocals are maybe a little bit too loud, but they honestly don’t bother me that much.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The Auto-Tuned distortion got on my nerves even before realizing the melody suggested “Just the Two of Us.”
[5]
John S. Quinn-Puerta: I mean no disrespect when I call this a fun little ditty — something to bounce around your skull for a few hours to pass a dull day, its melody made for lazy sing-alongs. CKay brings enough bounce to tap your toes and enough swing to sway your hips, but it doesn’t quite leave a mark beyond its short run-time, leaving you wishing for a bridge.
[6]
Al Varela: There’s something about songs that don’t really need a deep explanation as to why they’re good. Sometimes you can just feel it in the song’s rhythm, its atmosphere, and its chorus. The beautifully textured instrumentation takes the best parts of afrobeat and melds it into one of the most infectious songs of the year.
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