200,000 subscribers.
That was my goal to hit before the end of the year, and we did it boys, so thank you
so much for that.
Not to mention we hit 10k on Instagram yesterday, and now I just have one goal left to hit before
the end of the year...
10k on Twitter, @cdtvproductions, let’s band together 2007 squad and get that goal,
after all big Soulja himself is following me so what are you doing with your life if
you aren’t?
But with that being said, today we’re gonna look at 10 Rap Songs That were saved by the
featured artist as a follow up to my recent video on songs that were ruined by the feature.
Some of these songs I really dislike minus the guest artist, but also some of them aren’t
necessarily bad until the feature comes in, it’s just that the feature significantly
enhances the track and it wouldn’t be that great without them.
So with that being said this is CDTV, thank you so much once again for helping me reach
200k, and let’s look at 10 Rap songs saved by the feature.
10 - Nicki Minaj - Majesty (featuring Eminem & Labrinth)
The lower on the list these songs are, the less I think the featured artist needed to
save the track, so I don’t think Nicki is terrible on this song or anything, but Eminem’s
verse just goes through so many different phases through it’s near 2 minute length,
and it stays compelling the whole way through.
From his harmonising with the beat at the start, to one of his fastest verses ever,
it’s just a very strong verse as a whole, and he definitely didn’t even consider giving
an average guest verse for this one.
Also I think part of the reason I don’t like Nicki’s parts that much is because
of how abrupt and kind of jarring the beat switches are going into her verses, I just
don’t think they work that well.
Oh and these lyrics too.
These lyrics gave me an aneurysm.
Eminem is the main reason I listen to this song, but taken as a whole Nicki’s parts
could be worse.
9 - Wiz Khalifa - Fr Fr (feat.
Lil Skies)
I’ve said it in one of my most recent videos and I’ll say it again; autotuned Wiz Khalifa
is the worst Wiz Khalifa.
This isn’t as bad as We Dem Boyz or Letterman, but I’ll take chill stoner Wiz over trap
banger Wiz any day.
This song does have a more relaxed, hazy instrumental, but Wiz employs more of his trap style on
here, so naturally I don’t like it.
On the flip side, I think Lil Skies comes through with one of his most entertaining
verses in a while, with a couple really nice flow switches and some great harmonising throughout
his verse.
If I’m being honest, most of the time when I listen to this track i skip straight forward
to the Skies verse, then skip the track when it finishes.
I honestly don’t hate Wiz Khalifa, I actually think he’s overhated by a decent amount
of people, but this song definitely isn’t his strongest performance.
8 - French Montana - Unforgettable (featuring Swae Lee)
You probably all saw this one coming, and I mean yeah Swae Lee undeniably provides the
catchiest parts of this track.
Now for what it’s worth, this is nowhere near the worst French Montana performance,
its quite the opposite.
This is on the upper end of the output I’ve heard from him, but French’s upper end doesn’t
exactly have the highest bar.
However saying that, that is why it’s lower on this list because French isn’t horrendous
on here, so Swae Lee didn’t completely carry him.
Swae adds a lot of charisma to the track, the main trait that I always say Montana lacks,
and as someone who has a soft spot for Swae’s vocals it was impossible to not fall in love
with that hook.
He definitely boosted this track on to becoming the huge club banger that it is today.
7 - BlocBoy JB - Look Alive (featuring Drake)
This song was a huge hit, and it elevated BlocBoy into hip hop mainstream for sure,
but most people don’t even recognise the track as his.
Numerous times I’ve heard people call this Look Alive by Drake, and that’s because
he fills up the majority of this tracks run time, which you probably shouldn’t let him
do if you want to be the one that shines through.
Blocboy’s verse has a lot of energy to it and it starts off strong, but I personally
hate when he chops up his vocals just to make his flow sound more consistent than it actually
is, and he uses that effect a fair amount on this.
Well more than a fair amount.
It just gets a little annoying after a while.
Sure, Drake is monotone for the whole track, but I actually think it kinda works with how
fast paced the Tay Keith produced instrumental is, those rapid high hats kinda give Drake
more leeway to employ a casual style, and I think because of this his part of the song
is pretty good.
6 - NAV - Some Way (featuring The Weeknd)
Here the starboy and the greatest brown boi in the entire game teamed up, and one definitely
stood out more than the other.
This is essentially the same situation as Look Alive where most people consider the
track to be The Weeknd’s, but he is labelled as the feature on it.
The Weeknd is on this track for double the time that NAV is, and whilst NAV tries his
hardest to salvage his verse with introspective lyrics like “I think my nuts look better
on her face”, read the Genius annotation for that line if you really wanna understand
it’s depth, despite that he just doesn’t quite compare to The Weeknd’s velvety voice
that would make any man fail NNN.
5 - 6IX9INE - FEFE (featuring Nicki Minaj)
Interestingly back when I released my video on 10 Rap Songs ruined by the features, I
got a fair few comments asking where this song was.
I hadn’t actually heard it at that point, so the comments made me decide to go and listen
to the song, and I was surprised to find Nicki didn’t ruin the song at all.. she actually
provided the best parts of the song.
6IX9INE himself has said he wasn’t even trying with this song, and it’s not hard
to tell with how basic and kinda lazy the rhyme scheme and flow is on here.
Like, “I don’t even know like why I did that, I don’t even know like why I hit that,
all I know is that I just can’t wife that” that was clearly written in 30 seconds.
Not to say his part is unlistenable, because it’s alright, but it looks like Nicki actually
tried on her part which is more than I can say for 6IX9INE.
Her rhymes are pretty nice at parts, she switches her delivery a couple times, and she sounds
a million times more enthusiastic singing the chorus than 6IX9INE does.
She adds a little bit of vibrance and a spark to the song that would be entirely missing
without her featured verse.
4 - Rich the Kid - Early Morning Trappin (feat.
Trippie Redd)
Now you guys may or may not know that I am not the biggest Trippie fan at all, but damn
he came through and made this song 10 times more engaging.
This for me is a fairly good mix between Trippie’s unique but annoying scratchy vocals and a
more regular but bold style of singing, and for me that makes for a good enough combo.
This is basically Trippie Redd without much of the annoying aspects of his voice and I
can appreciate that.
Just imagine for a second if this song was just Rich the Kid’s segments.
What would really differentiate this track from songs like Lost It?
His flow isn’t that different from that track, and of course his delivery is pretty
much always the same, so he mostly relies on features to make his tracks sound different.
That’s what Trippie does for him here.
3 - Lil Yachty - BABY DADDY (featuring Lil Pump & Offset)
I’m sure not a lot of people expected it to be Lil Pump that would save a song from
being terrible.
Now Pump isn’t even that bad to be honest but he doesn’t exactly have a reputation
as the guy that saves rap songs.
Despite that, he’s the highlight of this.
Now Offset is also featured on here and I don’t think his verse is bad, it’s just
not special enough to really enhance the track, something which I feel like Pump does do.
The main reason I don’t like most of this track is Yachty, I really dislike Yachty’s
performance on this song as he tries to sound intimidating in this nonchalant way, and it
just feels so inauthentic, that’s one of my main problems with Yachty’s recent rapping
tracks.
However Pump is definitely himself here, dropping in with one of his more bold performances,
and at the time this dropped it was surprising to hear him rap with a decent amount of energy.
Lilliam Pumpernickel shone through on this one.
2 - Playboi Carti - New Choppa (feat.
A$AP Rocky)
As someone who’s not the biggest fan of Carti at all, there are so many different
songs from him that I could’ve included on here.
Features are blessings on a Playboi Carti album to me, and I chose this one because
Rocky outperforms him by such a huge margin and it’s not even close.
With Carti’s disjointed flowing style, it honestly doesn’t feel like the track has
even started until A$AP Rocky appears, and Rocky’s flow is anything but disjointed.
He easily breezes over the beat, making Carti’s verse seem really unimpressive in comparison.
And some people hate when rappers twist words to make them rhyme, but in my opinion it’s
pretty impressive how Rocky managed to rhyme “ID us” with “Adidas” with “obvious”
with “ideas” with “my hobby is”.
This track is something I wouldn’t even have given a second listen to if it wasn’t
for A$AP Rocky saving it.
1 - Kodak Black - ZEZE (featuring Offset & Travis Scott)
I mean the real real saviour of this song was the iconic steel drum based beat, but
Offset and Travis both did their part at taking the track up to the next level.
I’ve never really liked Kodak Black or his very slurred style of rapping, so he really
has to pull out something special for me to like a verse from him, and this certainly
isn’t the one.
His hook sounds ok, and it’s catchy, but the verse almost sounds very slightly offbeat
when compared to the slickness of Travis and Offset.
Offset very rarely delivers a disappointing guest verse, and here he rides the beat pretty
smoothly as if it’s nothing.
And while Travis doesn’t have a verse on here, he provides a really nice bridge, I
think the contrast of the bright tropical beat with his darker autotuned delivery creates
a great sound.
They both enhance this track a lot.
Now this definitely isn’t Kodak’s worst performance, not even close, but you can bet
that I would not revisit this track any time soon if it wasn’t for the guest artists.
Also this is unrelated, the title of this song kinda has me curious to see a 6IX9INE
remix of the song, is it only me
that thinks that actually would sound pretty good?
Probably.
(Outro)