If you ever use the phrase ‘grown n’ sexy,’ around Deen, he will splash lava in your eyes.
So yeah. Due to the mass induced delusions that Rick Rawse inflicted on otherwise reasonable folks during Spring/Summer 2010 with the twin salvos of ‘MC Hammer’ and ‘B.M.F.’, we’ve (who are we?) all come to the realization that Rawse is smart, Rawse is kind and Rawse is important. In other non-antebellum South tinged words, Rawse is someone we have to pay attention to these days – like it or not. I think you’re beginning to see what part of the divide I fall on.
Which reminds me – let’s take a quick moment to discuss my current day leanings on his holy fraudulence, the Dalai Buddha. That cop shit? That’s that shit I don’t like. Do I expect hyper-realism from all the rappers I listen to? Nope. But his shit is a little much for me. That said, I begrudgingly acknowledge and respect his artistry and evolution over time. I appreciate that he’s a student and fan of rap music and he tries to be the best Bawse he can be. I had a slight problem with him trying to eject Jeezy from the paint, having come into the game as a inferior version of Jeezy, but we all seem to be over that little non-beef, so I’ll just leave that there. Despite his vast improvement over time, I still find Rawse to be a fairly limited songwriter and overly reliant on guests. However, I appreciate the fact that he’s one of the few MCs with any kind of menace getting burn in the mainstream. That about sums up all my thoughts on Rawse. Oh and Slim Thug remains “The Boss” outchea. Forever and always.
So now that we got that out of the way, let’s discuss Rawse’s new single. The one you may or may not have heard yet. It has Usher on it. It’s called “Touch N’ You.” A clear play for the radio/charts if I’ve ever heard one. Right in line with his past singles from previous albums: “Speedin (feat R.Kelly),” “‘The Boss (feat. T-Pain),” “Super High (feat. Ne-Yo)” and whatever the last one was. I’m sure it was dope and had John Legend on it. No problem here with any of those – in principle at least. I was just hoping that by the time you hit your FIFTH album, you’d have something else in store for the folks that have helped propel your buzz to its highest point yet. This shit is just bland. Adding simp lyrics to a sugary R&B hook is just lazy. The same kind of lazy as remaking “B.M.F.” for 2 years straight.
Frankly, I’m a little disappointed. I didn’t really expect much – after all, I heard the pair of singles Rawse dropped last fall before his health issues and the concern kicked in. I know folks got excited that he made a song with Just Blaze, but that shit wasn’t single material and it really wasn’t that interesting — with the exception of the “narcissist/lobster bisque” line – that was hilarious.
The song with Nicki Minaj was a bit better or at least more interesting because it was a slightly different approach for a Rawse single, using a female voice/counterweight to his simp/sugar-dad talk, as opposed to some random R&B nigga; but it lacked verve. In any event, Rawse didn’t really get a chance to promote those singles, so we’ll never know how they would have done chart/buzz-wise. I’d suggest that even by radio standards, they wouldn’t have lasted long.
Thankfully for Rawse, “Stay Schemin” off his Rich Forever tape (had some moments, mostly meh) seemed to catch on, but since I’m a bitter jerk, I’ll give the credit to Drake’s verse (THAT Kobe line) and French Montana’s drunkly slurred hook/invention of the word “fanute.”
But back to this song. I know Usher is finally showing some “form” again post-divorce and forays into shitty Euro music, but I suspect that a good chunk of the “urban” (hate that descriptor) folk have left him for good. You can blame his shitty haircut and ugly ex-wife/man beard for that shit. Anyway, the people BEEN off Usher for a minute now. And assuming that I’m wrong about all this shit, “Lemme See” is a much better song than this shit. Rawse should consider moving two of his verses over to the beat from “Lemme See” and begging Usher to let him have that song instead of this “Touch N’ You” mess. The beat from this shit half sounds like a Rihanna “Cake”/Medium Sean “A$$” retread.
I swear I didn’t set out to slander this song. It just worked out that way. Against all odds and reason (I still don’t get it – never will), the Bawse has managed to work himself into prime position for God Forgives, I Don’t and I’m not really hearing anything that justifies the buzz. Honestly, the last great solo Rawse song was “9 Piece” and that was just the best of many “B.M.F.” retreads thus far. It’ll be really sad if all you Rawse stans collectively realize that you abandoned Jeezy for this lame shit. Well, maybe not abandoned – since Ol’ Peanut Skull [ll] went gold and seems about as healthy as one can expect in this fickle game, but you get the point.
C’mon Rawse, you can do better than this. Much better. We’ve heard it. Now stop fanuting valuable time on that Dark Sisqo and give us some shit we can bug the fuck out to this summa. UNGH!
