Vegan Monday: After tempeh, we eat our veggies…
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Micha Cavaseno: Casey Veggies once counted amongst Odd Future’s ranks, yet he inexplicably left the group due to managerial advice. Apparently that was great advice because he’s done so well for himself in the past 8 years by just wandering around making commercial records that nobody listens to. He’s like one of those network TV series that exists for 10 years but you’ve never heard someone say they watch it. Man, even DOM KENNEDY has done better than Casey Veggies. On “Backflip,” nothing changes for Casey, because he needs actually enjoyable rapper YG to perform a charity verse full of personality, confidence, and spontaneity. The less said about Iamsu’s lazy Young Thug-biting hook the better.
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: Casey Veggies, in spite of his terrible nom de plume, has a pretty decent flow on his verse here; YG and Iamsu! (it’s like the League of Awful Rapper Names) add nothing, and the production is limp.
[2]
Natasha Genet Avery: YG has a question to ask: can he buy your agency? I thought “Up!” was massively underrated and apparently so did Iamsu: with “Backflip,” he dug up his earlier formula, swapped in some minor chords, and hoped for the best. This could have worked — the instrumental hook is catchy and Casey Veggies’ bars are passable — but YG’s creepy and coercive verse drains the song of any levity. His object of interest is financially desperate (car payment due tomorrow!) and so the entrepreneurial YG sees this as an opportunity for her to perform various sex acts for him and his friends. To underscore the fact that he views women as walking vending machines, YG also riffs off the idea of female bisexuality as nothing more than a sweet treat men can buy. Sort of disappointing in a post-“I Don’t Mind” world.
[3]
Brad Shoup: It’s “21 Questions,” give or take 20, and it was going about as well as you’d think until YG goes “she just tryin’ to get rid of that stress/so every question I ask she say ‘yeah’.” Iamsu! crafts a slightly unsettling track: a steady leering bottom note cut with darting percussion. It’s hard to get comfortable, as you’d imagine.
[4]
Rebecca A. Gowns: Young and fun. Throwback elements infuse a track that also tends to sound dated; it came out in January, so it’s still carrying that 2014 aura with it. If this came out on “Empire,” it would be a fresh change of pace. Hitting the Top 40, it’s pleasant and fits in well, but it doesn’t do much more than that. And you know what? It doesn’t need to.
[7]
Ramzi Awn: Easy, breezy, beautiful: “Backflip” doesn’t try too hard, and succeeds.
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