Another one in the ‘meh’ bin…
[Video]
[5.50]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: DJ Khaled singles started off as genuinely impressive displays of rap scene connections, morphed into perfunctory crossover events somewhere between 2012 and 2015, and have finally metastatized as clearinghouses for verses from anyone who’s had a Spotify number 1 in the last calendar year. Throughout it all, DJ Khaled has remained resolute in his aesthetics of cheap luxury, which would be admirable if it weren’t so boring.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: Already alarmingly joyless for a Cardi single, then 21 Savage drops the energy and creativity levels (Kanye tweets were a novel reference almost a decade ago) beneath the ocean floor.
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: An aggressive Cardi B single with a solid 21 Savage feature? I love listening to Cardi rap (that flow!), and 21 is improving as a rapper, so yeah, I’m good with that. Khaled and Tay Keith’s production is less trap and more ’90s NYC hip hop, so I’m happy with that, too.
[7]
Alfred Soto: I thought “Wish Wish” a surefire single in May, and I’m delighted Khaled takes my advice. For once Cardi’s male co-stars respond to her provocations without insulting her.
[9]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Mainland Chinese people don’t dance — or at least in the club. I live in a city of eight million people where there’s only a handful of bars for clubbing, and even then, the past several times I’ve been, the dance floor has been virtually empty. People are more content to sit at a table with bottle service, bobbing their heads nervously waiting for others to make the first move — and for the few that venture out of their seats, their movement is usually more swaying back and forth than dancing. My friends and I are foreigners, though. So either due to our shamelessness or carelessness, when “Wish Wish” came on the club the other weekend, it didn’t matter at all that no one was dancing: we flooded the scene and got down so hard people started to take videos of us. We even got a couple people to join us. Chalk it up to a song who flow and beat are infectious and DJ Khaled choosing just the right people to take advantage of them. 21 Savage is in form, but the real star is Cardi: every set-up punchline lands perfectly and her verse and chorus are so hypnotic they could go on forever.
[7]
Joshua Lu: There are moments when Cardi B and 21 Savage try to ramp up the intensity of “Wish Wish,” but the inert production dampens the song regardless, rendering the song lifeless. Not even DJ Khaled seems excited to be here — this is the first time I’ve felt like he needs to shoehorn in more ad-libs.
[4]