We got Tyga on Tyga on Tyga…
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[5.36]
Katherine St Asaph: “Try to imagine the most darkest, murderous, corrupt place on the planet.” Mission accomplished, I guess, but I didn’t like Sin City either.
[4]
John Seroff: YC’s “Racks” became inescapable last year by repeating a simple six note motif [G/B/A/A/B/A] about, oh, six thousand times. YG’s (not YC’s) DJ Mustard and Tyga took note of that success and determined that they could get the same audience for “Rack City” while cutting the note count in half to A/G♯/C♯. Truly, this is an era of belt-tightening. I look forward to Rick Ross’ 2013 smash “Rick’s Racks of Ribs”, with its hook of a single sustained A. Old heads will recognize the melody as being ripped off from the Indian test card, but I guess nothing’s sacred anymore.
[2]
Iain Mew: The monochrome, airless production is matched by Tyga’s cold blankness. The world of “Rack City” is a world in which joy and hope don’t exist, just a flat succession of bitches. I can imagine a different song, one with better hooks or something more to say, making something compelling out of that blankness, but this one is just grim and depressing.
[2]
Andy Hutchins: It does not matter one bit what Tyga says in between reciting “Rack City, bitch/Rack, Rack City, bitch” as a mantra over DJ Mustard’s fat three-note synth dive and rudimentary chants, which is why his semi-interesting verses, especially the second (“Too much rim make the ride too hard” as a double entendre is … novel) are just a bonus. As inherently misogynistic (strip) club fare goes, you could do worse/a lot less hypnotic.
[7]
Alfred Soto: After “Yonkers” I’ve a renewed appreciation of affected smut-talk, and after a dumb introduction I was ready to dig in. All I got was a line about putting grandma on my dick.
[5]
Brad Shoup: I thought chart hip-hop mandated internal conflict, so this is weirdly refreshing, simplicity of the beat aside. Mustard’s three-note Gothicism isn’t lazy so much as mocking — like the way Tyga over-enunciates the line-ending vowels in the second verse — and I can’t help but think this is aimed at Odd Future plus the relevant fanbase. “Rack City” addresses a woman (or women) with a heavy-hanging tone of threat, but he’s not describing crimes. Really, the scariest thing here is the slight electronic processing that crops up on the chorus, like a serial killer’s tic.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Laid back, low riding, torpid, stretches out like warm honey, almost pleasurable for that, but the pimp aesthetic is worn out and I’ve never been good about casual misogyny.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: Young Money’s Least Valuable Player several years running finally justifies his existence on a spare, hollowed-out track over which he mumbles just forcefully enough to leave a bruise.
[8]
Michelle Myers: Don’t let that “On My Level” blog-friendly menace fool you. This is snap, almost slow enough for leaning & rocking. All the crunk anxiety has been replaced with draggy apathy, but the chorus is straight hypnotic.
[8]
Jonathan Bradley: “Rack City” sounds like it might be a hyphy throwback — not the maximalist compositions the Bay Area genre was best known for, but something bare and propulsive like Keak da Sneak’s “White T-Shirt, Blue Jeans & Nikes.” Tyga is less interesting or engaging a rapper than Keak, but he doesn’t need to be on a track with a three note riff as darkly inviting as this one. The potentially infinite loop of the chorus does something no track this empty should be expected to do: It overwhelms.
[8]
Michaela Drapes: Aw man, a perfect beat and catchy hook destroyed by perfectly idiotic and uninspiring lyrics. What a disappointment; perhaps the remix will redeem it.
[3]