A first-timer to the Jukebox and a many, many, many, many-timer to the Jukebox join forces…
[Video]
[7.78]
[8]
Alfred Soto: No hooks, just two rappers tossing the ball around the court around a post-Pharrell ping-pong beat and an electrobuzz and… a 50 Cent sample? Can’t hear it. A minor pleasure.
[7]
Charlotte Gaze: This marquee collab is ostensibly a coronation single for AZ Chike, once a fixture of the late 2010s LA rap wave, as he attempts to kickstart a second act by graduating to the big leagues. In practice, it’s another non-album Tyler single in the tradition of “Potato Salad” or “Cash In Cash Out” where, unconstrained by his dedication to bold album statements, he generally leans goofier and more braggadocious and relishes the opportunity to bounce verses off a collaborator. While he does this type of single well, balancing his wacked out impulses with a deep understanding and reverence toward west coast rap styles, each new one feels more like we’re hearing him in his comfort zone. There’s nothing wrong with consistency, but it can undercut the air of spontaneity and rebelliousness that a single like this is going for, as well as the excitement implied by AZ Chike’s recent entrance to the spotlight. He does prove himself more than Tyler’s equal behind the microphone, but the occasion would be more special if it felt like he was the one setting the terms.
[6]
Callie Petch: One day, I am going to sue Tyler for the neck damage he’s caused me as a result of his beats. As soon as that bass dropped, my head was at risk of going through the wall for the next three minutes. The man knows how to make something that just fuckin’ bangs. And that’s not even getting into his best verses in a hot minute, with at least a half-dozen pieces of golden shit-talk that got audible reactions out of me. (Personal fave: “Your bitch is not bad, you just have low standards.”) You would think, then, that AZ Chike got murked on his own track — far from it. If his “peekaboo” guest verse was the coming-out party, this is the one where he cements himself as next up. Where Tyler attacks his beat like rabid pit bull, Chike skips all over it like jump rope, continuously finding new pockets to dive into, and sounding utterly disgusted at the prospect of anybody else not thinking he’s the shit. He practically spits out that final syllable on “it be the n*ggas I’m better than sayin’ they can’t see the hype, tough” like a chef’s just tried to serve him expired caviar. Even if he wasn’t dropping bars all over the shop, I’d be all-in just on his delivery. He pronounces “DAZN” as “daz-un” rather than the organisation’s stupid official way of “da zone”; that’s a man after my own heart!
[9]
David Allun Jones: A school cafeteria stomp-clap jazzed out with cartoony sound effects and crowd-noise loops that evoke the weirder, minimalist leanings of Timbaland and the Neptunes. Tyler and AZ Chike steamrolling through a back n’ forth mic-tossing session bulging with such fun b-boy swagger you don’t even miss the hook it lacks. AZ solidly cements his trajectory from GNX brow-raiser to Next Great Cali-Rap Hope by, once again, stubbornly refusing to let the bigger star completely steal the spotlight. Then there’s me, soaking it all in with the widest perma-grin the entire 3:16.
[9]
Julian Axelrod: Considering his status as one of the most influential rappers of the past decade, it’s remarkable how no one’s been able to replicate the sound of Tyler, the Producer. If you want a beat that sounds like the Neptunes drunk driving a low rider through a marching band, you gotta go straight to the source. Credit to AZ Chike, a Kendrick acolyte whose debut No Rest for the Wicked is one of the year’s most impressive portfolio diversifiers, for going bar for bar and slotting into Tyler’s specific sound like a long-lost Odd Future third stringer. There are a lot of great LA rappers, but not everyone can pull off a convincing Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black.
[8]
Jel Bugle: This was fun! I like the harmonic quality of the rapping and the clunky melodies. It evoked a certain feeling of enjoyment both for the listener and from the performers.
[8]
Tom Feckerdt: I find it a bit tedious that this prestigious “reintroduction” to AZ Chike starts off not with the man himself, but with the headline-drawing feature, himself on double duty as rapper and producer. On that note, Tyler’s carnival-Pharrell impressions have never cut it for me production-wise. They always felt too self-impressed with their own quirkiness and, more often that not, obnoxiously busy. And seeing as Chike actually got himself a Pharrell-produced song for his album, a song with just as much movement and more intricate dynamics (not to mention funnier arrangements), “Look Like My Mama” can’t help but pale in contrast. If anything, considering his vocal tone, Chike seems to be a lot better-equipped for songs with smaller, less histrionic accompaniment. Here, he tries a couple of times to stretch out his voice like his co-signer Kendrick and he can’t quite pull it off. He seems to better when he finds a flow that feels comfortable to him and is able to ride it out for a while, making a greater impression through the cumulative effect of a bunch of bars rather than a single individual great one. By far the best part of this song is when he finds a small pocket of long /oo/ words, with his voice underlining the rhyme scheme with each word (“T came gave me a boost, n****s boof, chop the deuce, I do movies, you do spoofs”) but there can only be so many of those moments when rapping in an eight-bar-back-and-forth arrangement like this one. So while I haven’t been fully impressed by his voice or wordplay yet, I’m willing to be charitable, if only because hearing him rhyme “hummus” with “months, then” gave me a hell of a kick.
[5]
Nortey Dowuona: The fun part of watching both Tyler and Chike slide over this heavyseat drum patter laid by Tyler is that Chike is herky jerky yet purposeful, spilling off the beat then springing right back onto it without even flinching, while Tyler slips through the percussion without ever losing the thread of the snare. It is so smooth yet so heavy. perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
[10]