So before we get into this video, my twin CDTVThaG who I have a deep, deep hatred for
has asked me to plug his channel to congratulate him for hitting his 50k subscriber milestone.
He threatened me by saying he would delete my channel when I wasn’t looking if I didn’t
plug it, so yeah, link to his channel in the description.
But with that being said, it’s time for a follow up to my Most Overhyped Rap Songs
list.
There were a couple songs I really forgot to include on there, and just so many more
that I wanna talk about.
Remember to keep in mind that I don’t even dislike a fair few of the songs on this list,
they’re just songs that I can’t get into as much as most other people can, in other
words, I think they’re overrated.
So with that being said, this is the better half of the CDTV twins, and let’s get right
into this list.
10 - Lil Yachty “66” (feat.
Trippie Redd)
This was the most popular song on Lil Boat 2 in terms of Spotify streams, and it’s
not even close.
The nearest one is NBAYOUNGBOAT, which still has 20 million less plays.
Now, I heavily disliked Lil Boat 2 and I still think there’s at least 5-7 songs on there
that are better than 66.
The song is all about Yachty becoming rich, set against this dreamy, angelic type of beat.
So far so good, but then we get to his actual voice on here and I just don’t think the
delivery matches the message or low key celebratory tone of the song.
He just sounds like he’s in the booth, closed off, and looking down at his feet as he raps.
Sometimes he just sounds nervous or unconfident for some reason, and that works on some tracks
where he’s being the innocent, goofy Yachty, but not when he’s trying to flex his success.
As for Trippie, he gets points for not screeching at all when he sings here, but nothing about
his performance is all that special to me on this one.
Really nice beat, but overall I don’t think Yachty or Trippie do all that much to enhance
it.
9 - Lil Wayne “A Milli”
Everyone who’s heard of Lil Wayne will at least somewhat recognise this track, it was
one of Wayne’s earliest big hit songs, going double platinum and making multiple reputable
lists as one of the best tracks of 2008.
I can respect that this track was a big milestone in Wayne’s career, but it’s never really
been a song that I like.
There’s 2 big issues for me as far as this song goes; first, that goddamn sample on the
beat.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool use of a sample and it’s nicely put together, but
it just doesn’t stop.
It nearly runs throughout the whole track and it’s insanely distracting.
I’d like it so much better if it only played during the hook portion of the song, but it
gets irritating hearing it loop constantly for 3 minutes.
The other issues for me is the fact that I’m simply not a huge fan of Wayne’s Carter
III era voice.
It has this ever shifting, uncontrolled and strained sound to it that’s never appealed
to me, and that combined with the instrumental makes this a track that is more off-putting
to me than anything.
Personally I think the looped sample thing was executed much better on Wayne’s 6 Foot
7 Foot.
8 - Notorious B.I.G “Hypnotize”
And here we go jumping straight into another track that’s held in very high regard by
many rap fans.
And trust me, I don’t downright hate this track or anything, but every time the song
comes on I just tune out.
Biggie’s flow is great as always and the way he switches it up so effortlessly is really
slick, but the overall sound of this track is what makes it not very enjoyable to me
personally.
It’s probably the one I find the hardest to explain on this list, there’s not too
much I can point out as being an issue, but I guess the beat isn’t that appealing to
my tastes on this one.
The kind of groovy bassline the track revolves around works for what its going for, but I’ve
never been a fan of these more stripped down, groovy rap beats.
Layered, detailed production is always gonna be way more interesting to me, and I think
that’s maybe where my issue with this one lies.
Biggie is incredible for sure, but I’ve never loved Hypnotize.
7 - Childish Gambino “This Is America”
Now is a good time to say this again; I don’t think all the songs on this list are bad.
Because this isn’t a bad song, and there’s a few things I love about it.
The themes behind it?
Brilliant.
The overall message Gambino is presenting?
Great.
The music video that goes along with the song?
Easily one of my favourite music videos of 2018.
But take away the music video, and I actually think the song standing by itself isn’t
that interesting sonically.
That’s really the big issue here, if I listen to this without the music video, it becomes
10 times less gripping and encapsulating, and we’re focusing on this purely as a song
in this list.
It honestly has very little replay value to me without the visuals.
I even presented this opinion on The Rap Critics 10 best songs of The year list, saying exactly
what I just said, and of course a fair few responses were along the lines of “you just
don’t understand the themes and that’s why you don’t like it”... even though
the themes and message are the exact parts I singled out as liking.
And that’s why I think this song is overhyped.
No matter what the reason is for you not loving it, there’s always gonna be an army of people
who say it’s because you “just don’t get it”.
Gambino always has great concepts, so I’m not just gonna enjoy his songs on a concept
alone.
6 - Lil Uzi Vert “Money Longer”
Lil Uzi Vert is someone I’ve called a bad rapper, in my opinion of course, on numerous
occasions.
However, that is an opinion that’s changed a little bit over time, certain songs and
projects have become a lot more enjoyable to me as time has passed.
But Money Longer, one of his biggest hits, is one that I’ve never really felt the appeal
of.
Like I’ve always found that even on songs where I don’t like the verses, Uzi has some
really memorable hooks that sound good, but the one on this track has this weird rhythm
and kinda off kilter flow to it that really throws me off.
It’s not exactly off beat, but I just feel like Uzi’s flow and cadence during the hook
sounds so awkward against the notes the melody of the instrumental is hitting.
It’s almost like he’s going a little bit too fast compared to the beat and he doesn’t
wait for it to catch up before rapping his next chunk of bars.
Every time I listen it instantly kills the vibe of the track for me, and the verses aren’t
really anything special so they don’t save the song for me either.
As I said, Uzi May have grown on me recently, but I don’t know if this song ever will.
5 - Travis Scott “Sicko Mode” (feat.
Drake & Swae Lee)
This song has half a billion streams on Spotify and it’s only been out for less than 6 months.
It’s safe to say, it’s loved by a lot of people.
However, there is one simple reason why my enjoyment of this song isn’t proportional
to its popularity; as you probably know, there’s 3 different beats on Sicko Mode, and I really
really don’t like the second one or how Travis’s voice works with it, and because
of that I feel like that segment lasts way too long.
I just find the first and last instrumentals are so much better than that second one.
Something about the way the bass jabs sound during it comes off as almost a little obnoxious
and that is off-putting.
It’s a big obstruction in the song to me, because I love the way it kicks off, the intro
almost has this dramatic sound to it.
Then the first beat switch occurs and I have to sit through nearly 2 minutes that I don’t
like until we get to the second beat switch and the song becomes much more enjoyable again.
I guess there is a risk when you have so many different instrumentals on one song, not everyone
is gonna like all of them, and that is the issue I have with this one.
It’s honestly not even in the top 5 songs from Astroworld for me, but I know there’s
a lot of people that would disagree.
4 - Future “Where Ya At” (feat.
Drake)
Now I feel like it takes a fairly good lyricist to build almost all of a song around one phrase
and keep it enjoyable for a whole song, but to me Future & Drake just aren’t the guys
for that.
As the song name hints towards, this track revolves around the phrase “where your *** was
at”, and Future’s delivery and flow is so uniform here that at first it’s kinda
hard to tell where the chorus ends and where the first verse starts.
The sound and the structure is practically the same.
And like I said the song really revolves around that phrase, with 35 out of the 64 bars on
the track starting with “where your *** was at”, and like I said Drake & Future really
don’t work with this in any type of exciting way, just rambling through their verses about
people who only wanna be around them cause they’re popular now.
Drake does have a couple lines that are kinda funny or well put together on here, but apart
from that it’s a very flat, monotone offering.
No doubt one of the weaker tracks from the best Future album I’ve heard so far.
3 - Rae Sremmurd “Swang”
I love Rae Sremmurd, and I mostly love Swae Lee’s high pitched vocals but sometimes
man, sometimes they just reach the point of sounding laughable, and that is the case with
Swang.
What even is that?
On the older Rae Sremmurd tracks, Swae really seemed to go super high pitched while managing
to just stay outside of the “sounding ridiculous” field.
This isn’t an example of that.
And the worst part is, when he does tone down his vocals here, he tones them down so much
to a sleep inducing monotone style of rapping, I legit can’t win with the deliveries on
here.
The beat doesn’t even save this one for me, i might even go as far as saying it’s
one of the driest beats on SremmLife 2.
The only thing I do like on this track is the Slim Jxmmi verse, he comes in with that
same turnt up energy that he always has, but it’s not enough to save this track from
being bad.
When I first heard the album this came from, I genuinely thought this song wouldn’t perform
well at all, but fast forward and it’s one of Rae Sremmurd’s most popular songs.
I really don’t know how.
2 - Drake “Nonstop”
Now... this is a bit of an embarrassing one to talk about, because it reminds me of when
I completely butchered what would’ve been a hilarious joke.
But Drake’s sons name isn’t Adidon.
I messed up.
BUT I STILL STAND BY WHAT I SAID SO LET ME FIX THAT MOMENT.
Nonstop has such a dead beat that I’m surprised it doesn’t have a son named Adonis.
Redeemed.
And that wasn’t just a joke for the sake of it, I do find the beat for this song to
be very boring, consisting of not much more than the low hum of the bassline and a standard
Tay Keith drum pattern.
Compound that with Drake’s monotone rapping and unvarying flow and it results in a really
dry song, with a couple lines that just hurt my soul every time I hear them.
But despite that, it’s still a number 1 hit single and the song with the second highest
amount of streams on this list.
It’s an incredibly popular song, but for me it’s probably one of the most boring
ones from Scorpion, which in itself is a pretty bland album already.
I also just realized Drake has appeared on this list 3 times, I promise I don’t hate
him, he’s just involved in a lot of overrated songs I guess.
1 - Sheck Wes “Mo Bamba”
I’m sure some of you saw this one coming, as I’ve made my feelings on this track quite
clear before.
As far as I’m concerned Mo Bamba is the reason that world peace still has not been
achieved yet.
If World War 3 happens, I’m fully convinced that this song will be the catalyst.
But why do I dislike it so much?
Well, let’s start with that horribly dragged out flow by Sheck that he uses for most of
the song.
I will never find that catchy or appealing, it’s just aggravating.
It’s also ironic on this song how he says when he only showcases like 2 different ones
on this track.
Wrong song to say that on Shecky.
The best part of the track is his ad libs cause they’re pretty energetic, and that
part where he gets super hyped up, but that’s nowhere near enough to save the song from
being awful for me.
A lot of people point to the beat as one of the reasons why they enjoy this song, but
even then I don’t think the beat is anything too amazing, it’s just alright.
And don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Sheck, I actually enjoy a lot of his Mudboy
album and Live Sheck Wes is a track that truly displays Sheck’s energy, that one is great.
But Mo Bamba is most certainly not, and how it’s not only the biggest hit from Sheck’s
album, but is also one of the biggest songs of 2018 is something that I will never be
able to comprehend.
And that, that is why Mo Bamba takes the number 1 spot on this list.
(Outro)