Lupe Fiasco isn’t necessarily the kind of guy you like to share too many opinions with. Increasingly out-there as his career advances, spacey in interviews and ranty in blog posts, using Lupe’s corroboration to support one of your own arguments is a little like saying “See! My crazy uncle who thinks Obama is secretly working for the USSR agrees with me!” Still, the guy is capable of the occasional moment of lucidity, and one may have come recently when he was asked about 2 Chainz’ new Kanye West-featuring single “Birthday Song” in a radio interview in Connecticut. Responded Lupe:
Ehhh…I was saying this earlier…I want to hear stuff that I haven’t heard before, so like 99% of the hip-hop that I hear these days is just the same. And, it just kinda get like, ‘What am I listening to it for?’ And for me, that’s keeping it one hunnid. It might be good, beat is dope, lyrics might be whatever on a technical thing, but at the end of the day it’s like, ‘Why am I listening to this?’” Fiasco added.
We’re not with every detail of Lupe’s statement—even by most cynical estimations, 99% is a high number for hip-hop saminess, and not keeping it one hunnid isn’t always a dealbreaker with us. But his general assessment of the 2 Chainz song, that it just kinda sounds like everything else and doesn’t give you much of a reason to want to listen to it, is actually pretty right on. What’s more, we wouldn’t even give it the credit of having a dope beat or the lyrics being whatever on a technical thing—it just seems kind of wasteful to us.
The song has the kind of uninspired, bombastic-but-draggy beat that rappers like Young Jeezy and Gucci Mane have subsided on (or been forced to subside on) for far too long, and 2 Chainz doesn’t exactly do much interesting with it. The lyrics are vapid and ridiculous—a borderline-irrelevant point when discussing a 2Chainz song, sure, but there’s not even a hook as catchy as “I’m ridin’ round and I’m gettin’ it” or “No lie, no lie, no lie-ee-ie-iiiiiieeee….” or a line as hilarious as “We’re gon’ have to name that lil baby Mer-ce-des!” Instead, there’s Chainz mentioning how all he wants for his birthday (a lyrical conceit never followed up on elsewhere in the song) is a “big booty ho,” and lists various places he’d like to be buried were he to die (The Louis store, the Gucci store, next to two bitches, etc.) More than anything else, it’s just boring.
The most discouraging part, and another that Lupe addresses in the radio interview—is Kanye’s involvement in the project. He’s listed as a co-producer on the song, with “Racks” producer Sonny Digital—though the beat is so unextraordinary we’re hoping he just added a synth layer or two—and he offers a decent enough guest verse. But does Kanye really even belong on the song? Lupe doesn’t think so—”“And then, you just got some people where it just don’t fit, like a joint like that,” he continued in the interview. “It’s like, ‘Yo, you want to do a verse on it?’ And then, be like, ‘Nah, you my man, but nah. Let’s do something else.’”
Indeed, “Birthday Song” is so far below Kanye’s normal standards, both musically and lyrically, that his mere presence on the song is a little befuddling. Sure, 2 Chainz is a G.O.O.D. Music labelmate, and sure, Kanye likes a good big-booty ho rap as much as the next rapper, but as Lupe says, it’s just not a good fit—for better or worse, ‘Ye is too smart a rapper for a song this goon-ish. Just because the song was there and waiting for him to jump on doesn’t mean he had to go and do it.
So yeah, we’re with Lupe on this one. We hope we don’t have to say that too many more times.
[XXL]
The post Hate to Say It, But We’re With Lupe Fiasco About This 2 Chainz Track appeared first on Popdust.
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