Afrobeats and pianos: a cautionary tale.
[Video][Website]
[6.00]
David Sheffieck: Irresistibly propulsive, with a secret weapon in the guttural trills that punctuate the song; I’d give it a higher score but the dull piano chords stand out as a boring – and superfluous – element. Nothing a remix can’t cure, but something it seems like one shouldn’t have to.
[6]
Ramzi Awn: Party boys and a piano isn’t necessarily a bad look.
[5]
Micha Cavaseno: Afrobeats finally gives me something rude and with a headful of dread for me to skank to.
[8]
Megan Harrington: To the ignorant ear, “Duze” sounds just harrowing, like last words forced from your lungs as hurricane winds bare down on your chest. Its urgency is kinetic, transferring its frenzied energy from Uhuru to the listener as an absorbed shock.
[8]
Madeleine Lee: Dynamic and fluid, somehow suspended in a groove and in constant motion at the same time. Dude should find something else that rhymes with “Hong Kong,” though.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: “Duze” boasts a great, galloping rhythm and a chorus melody that’s insistent and instant, but that strangled vocal treatment doesn’t work for me. Instead of heightening the urgency, it detracts from the track’s strengths. There is also a piano for some reason, lifted from the end of a gigantic power ballad for all the sense that it makes.
[4]
Will Adams: The piano is so at odds with the rest of the track — not helped by the fact that it’s obviously an out-of-the-box, sampled instrument — that the extended runtime poses a major threat.
[5]