DaBaby – Pop Dat Thang

His biggest hit since 2020…

[Video]
[5.43]Al Varela: Sheesh, what a bleak time in the rap industry that we’re scraping the barrel for new DaBaby hits. Though, as much as we want to believe otherwise, DaBaby only became irrelevant because his songs stopped being good. He would have been just fine after Rolling Loud if he didn’t double down on his cheap clown music. I’m not surprised he’s back in the Top 40 through a very catchy Atlanta bass banger that’s so carried by its sampled beat that DaBaby feels like a footnote in his own song. Which is a double-edged sword, because while DaBaby very quickly became obnoxious by the end of 2021, there was something to his humor and charisma that’s completely missing in “Pop Dat Thang”. He raps in a low voice and delivers his bars with a straightforward cadence. I can’t tell you anything he says, the only thing that plays in my head is that beat, which is admittedly really damn good. In that case I’d probably give more credit to Sean da Fritz for making a good dance track rather than DaBaby himself, but eh. Even as is I think there’s better Atlanta bass out there we could be listening to instead.
[6]

Ian Mathers: Performs the signifiers of horniness so thoroughly that my only response is “sure man, whatever.”
[5]

Julian Axelrod: An uncredited sample of a woman’s voice can be so powerful. If I was still on Spotify, this would go triple platinum in Private Mode.
[6]

Charli Jae Brister: As a bisexual trans woman who has not had bottom surgery, I can relate to every aspect of this song. Cool! Fun song, too.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: Fuck this song. Who is the girl who really makes this song pop? This remix fixes the whole song by filling up the rest of the song with hard verses from GloRilla, Yung Miami and YKNiece – but know to cut the song off before he shows up. Unfortunately this is not the version we are writing about, so again, fuck this song. DaBaby is bad on it but who cares. Sean the Firzt & Kayo the Wizard’s beat work is phenomenal, tho.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The DaBaby comeback in this cycle is as inevitable as DOGE was last year, but instead of flexing a minimum of his wit and speed the rapper gurbles like Luke Campbell without the community service.
[2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The appeal of DaBaby’s brief-but-unmissable imperial phase was how he took up sonic space — even when he shifted into a more contemplative mood he still was an undeniable force of charisma, the center of the universe for three minutes at a time. Obviously, “DaBaby as a captivating scamp” was always an attraction with a limited shelf life; even if he had not chosen to be reduced, by the LGBTQ+ community, to an abstract concept in 2021, he had perhaps 3 months of stardom left. The return of DaBaby, then, can be attributed to his newfound ability to get out of the way. “Pop Dat Thang” is a potent enough party record that anyone could make it a hit; DaBaby succeeds by doing nothing of note over it.
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