And here’s Wale, scintillating as always…
[Video][Website]
[5.91]
Andrew Ryce: What would possibly convince someone that a Wale guest verse is a good idea? Who thinks, “gee, I could really hear Wale on this track?” First minute aside, the beat on this thing is killer, vintage Ninja Tune-style jazz cutups updated for 2012 with droopy synths and meaty snares. Her vocals are typically lovely, the multi-layered chorus works wonders in spite of its complexity, and bonus points for the shaky-cam video perfectly capturing the song’s disorienting feeling of drunken, indignant dissatisfaction.
[8]
Jer Fairall: The deep, undulating groove sets a promising scene, but Moses’ evasive vocal is little more than aural wallpaper, aloof where she needs to sound exotic, disinterested where she needs to sound seductive. Wale’s presence here makes about as much sense as a Bill Murray cameo in the middle of a sumptuous European erotic melodrama.
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: Did you … did you just say “bigger than Clifford,” Wale?
[6]
Frank Kogan: Wale is a stubby little tugboat pulling the ship out of dock. Then out in the open, Teedra moves along smoothly but imperiled, the rhythm coming in little wavelets that are more treacherous than they seem.
[8]
Iain Mew: I started off thinking that the Teedra part of this song was going to be providing a hook to hang at least one more Wale verse off. She does her best with the material, but there just isn’t enough there to carry almost the whole song.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: If you’re paired with Wale, no one can fault your seeking another lover; it helps if you sound colder than your leaving him.
[7]
Zach Lyon: Teedra is bona fide strong, but hearing my favorite beat from when I was a teenager jacked for a Wale v2.Maybach verse? Might call that a hip hop crime.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Beatjacking on mixtapes is like adultery in space: it may feel weird, but it doesn’t count. Noting the deletion of the Last Poets sample (or possibly contending with the 6/4 time signature), Teedra endeavors to replace the lost information. She crams in interjections, breathy additions and redundant phrases. Still, you can’t fuck with the Mickey Bass line, and Moses’ slight self-sabotage could never derail this groove. Wale hits a solid double from the leadoff position, setting the table with a knotty verse that switches between allegiance and askance glances.
[5]
John Seroff: You know you’re old when songs that interpolate older songs are in turn reinterpolated by newer songs. You know you’re lucky when they don’t suck. I guess we’re all lucky that Wale comes and goes quickly after he gets a short, Nicki-influenced verse; any comparison of this dude to the Abstract is not gonna play out in youngblood’s favor. Teedra’s Aaliyah-esque turn is far stronger and more believable; her pensive and lively voice on “LuvR” gives the song the muscle needed to steer the historic and undeniable bassline away from ripoff or even homage and toward immediacy. She owns it.
[8]
Alfred Soto: I’m glad Teedra dominates the track — it’s a welcome change. But it’s a colorless domination. Before he had status, before he had a pager, you could find Wale listening to Quest; he knew enough then to borrow from the best.
[3]
Josh Langhoff: Nexuses of meaning are embedded in Mickey Bass’s 1973 bassline and its use in hip-hop, and someone should explore them thoroughly. They could examine whether A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘91 “Excursions” now signifies the same elder statesman classiness as Art Blakey’s “A Chant for Bu”, if indeed that’s what Blakey signified for Tribe. (Yes — but that’s not all he signified.) Or how by looping just the first two chords, which happen to have the same relationship as Miles Davis’s “So What” chords, Tribe showed how modal jazz anticipated such loops back in ‘59. Or how the mystical connotations of the “Chant” rub shoulders with the practical, both in Blakey’s famous work ethic and in Q-Tip’s punchline, “If you got the money, Quest is for the bookin’.” This song won’t be a very big part of the story. Moses hands us all these possibilities on a platter and then floats off to worry about something else.
[6]