The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Booba – OKLM

In French it means “OKLM”…


[Video]
[5.43]

Patrick St. Michel: In which the French artist whose music has been downloaded more than anyone else in the country continually stresses that his “career is incredible” over a beat that runs out of steam really quickly.
[4]

Cédric Le Merrer: Booba’s been the biggest thing going in the French hip hop scene for a few years now. Basically marketed as a kind of 50 Cent when he began (we always use an American reference to market a new artist in France. Saves a lot of time on brainstorming sessions), he’s now like a Fiddy that never failed, or the bodybuilder version of Rick Ross. Always two steps ahead of his pretty weak haters, you get the sense that he’s better because, unlike them, he knows the game he’s playing has nothing to do with the streets and everything to do with show business. He’s pretty boring on this new single, though. He clearly needs better haters to keep him going.
[4]

Crystal Leww: The beat makes me want to shout “OG! BOBBY! JOHNSON!”, but Booba has been at it way longer than Que, and he really demonstrates his adaptability despite the ebbs and flows of rap’s trends. This still shakes and rattles the way it should, despite my inability to sing along.
[6]

Anthony Easton: The attempts at musical variety are so half-hearted that it might be useful if they were dropped and this track could fully commit to the dirge it really wants to be. 
[6]

Brad Shoup: What’s the French for “drill,” and how can it be deployed better? There’s the phlegmatic bounce on the verses, like Drake side-stepping up and down a mountain. There’s the punny-I-guess hook delivered in as an appropriately blowed contrast. And then there’s the low-end heavy crawl of the standard ticking timebomb production, all cymbal smacks and stalactite drip. Gonna err on the side of only God judging this.
[7]

Iain Mew: The gleaming production and the way Booba throws himself into the rhymes with such controlled force makes me wish that I could get more out of the words than enjoying Fujiyama/Rihanna/Benihana and trying in vain to Internet-translate my way into the rest. The filtered drag of the chorus disrupts the alternative of just enjoying the whole thing for how it sounds.
[5]

Will Adams: Le “drill” est une langue universelle.
[6]

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