Mariah Carey- Obsessed ft. Gucci Mane (Remix)
Typical 2009 shit, Carey v. Mathers is the battle of the year. After Nick Cannon deleted his response post to Em’s shameless, predictable attention grab on the eve of his affected, unpleasantly familiar Relapse, Mariah throws the down the gauntlet, enlisting radio’s hottest working producer to write her a song with its own fucking orbit. “Obsessed” attains R. Kelly levels of melodic genius with pitch perfect verses, a gorgeous bridge, a narcotic hook and Dream’s signature harmonizing. It starts big and just keeps building while capturing the right tone of firm, confident rebuke along with just a note of taunt. After Fabolous’ lackluster “Throw It In The Bag” I was worried that The American Dream was beginning to settle into a predictable comfort zone littered with his go-to vocal tics over effervescent bounce but this is a planet devouring summer anthem and the most inspired stuff we’ve heard from Carey in years. Gucci isn’t the first name I might’ve thought to throw on here but he’s brought in for a cameo at what’s become his moment, and he tempers his weirdness accordingly (Personally would’ve loved Tricky Stewart to allow Gucci to ad lib all over this thing a la the O.G. king of the Random R&B cameo) but brings his nimble high energy in an utterly bizarre cosigning of her response to Mathers. (Does he not realize what he’s contributing to or simply doesn’t care? It certainly feeds into his whole lone entity approach) Incredibly, it seems the best thing Eminem ever did for Mariah was piss on her.
Damn. She's almost 40.
Mario- Breakin Up ft. Gucci Mane & Sean Garrett
“Breakin Up” sounds more like the type of R&B song you’d expect Gucci to pop up on. Woozy, inebriated and slightly demented. Bangladesh’s beat is filled with choppy snares and hand claps, a warbling carnivalesque synth and awkward pauses. He’s one of the most willfully alt commercial producers out, making unorthodox decisions not just with usual suspect like percussion, instrumentation or subverted sampling but with form and structure itself, an ideal producer for Gucci. Mario’s pleading seems like an afterthought here, standing in for what could’ve been any young generic crooner with a soft, smooth voice. The song is all in hit maker Sean Garrett’s suspiciously Dream-like arrangement. I don’t know how to feel about Gucci filling this guest R&B lane, certainly a great way to get his name out (though that's becoming less of a concern in New York where he's practically a household name so far this summer) but the tight topicality of a love song along with being handcuffed by the structure hurts that quintessentially Gucci quality we know and love. A few brief bars does not seem like enough room for dude to get up and truly stretch his legs. But hey, Jadakiss has stayed relevant for a decade popping up on the radio hit of the moment and dropping a few ill fitting punch lines, so get that money mane.
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