The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Mary J Blige ft. Diddy & Lil Wayne – Someone to Love Me (Naked)

And of course, Sister Mary’s still going nowadays too…



[Video][Website]
[5.25]

Martin Skidmore: She sings this with her usual strength and confidence, and it bounces along rather nicely in a rather reggae style, with a decent hook. The guest rapping from Diddy and Wayne is rather routine, when a bit more energy would have been welcome, but it’s a jolly enough record.
[7]

Hazel Robinson: I love Mary J Blige but why has she done a sort of reply-track to an album that was already a dialogue? She doesn’t quite fill the space — playing sample and lead vocalist is hard and the beat is sped up, tightened and confused so it sounds almost like a karaoke version of itself. It’s a great track to start off with but this feels deeply unnecessary from all sides.
[5]

Zach Lyon: Better than it was on Last Train to Paris but that’s a pretty big head start. The dialogue samples (or is that Mary?) in particular change the atmosphere completely for me.
[7]

Al Shipley: This is at least the third time in the past year that Mary has appeared on a remix of a song without doing much more than re-recording a vocal part from the original, after Drake’s “Fancy” and Jazmine Sullivan’s “Holding You Down.” And this one feels even more pointless given that she’s reclaimed the Diddy-Dirty Money song as her own single.
[4]

Michaelangelo Matos: Christ al-fucking-mighty, ENOUGH ABOUT YOURSELF ALREADY.
[3]

Pete Baran: It’s interesting that the guest acts here don’t just phone it in, but Mary’s light skat around their rap rightly rules the roost. It’s such a lightweight throwaway track that nevertheless is so much more fun than I expected. Mary ning-ning-nings and hicoughs her way through her vocal, showing she still has the chops, and I imagine her standing over both Diddy and Wayne with a stern look until they delivered what was required.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Taking one of the best songs from Diddy’s Last Train to Paris and injecting it with her lustrous self-adoration, Mary does a worse job than the anonymous The Sweet Inspirations, not to mention an animated Diddy and Wayne.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Best thing about this song is its title, which inspired me to come up with “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not (Naked),” “Ass On The Floor (Naked),” “Do It Like A Dude (Naked),” “I Just Had Sex (Naked),” “Born This Way (Naked),” etc… Not saying it’s a brilliant idea. Beyond that, there is something dubbish in the production that I like. Or at least I like it more than Wayne’s Dirty Harry hashtag.
[4]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comments