It’s a pretty obvious statement, but great instrumentals in hip hop are so damn important.
A great beat can elevate great rapping to the next level, and create an amazing
atmosphere that really absorbs you into the music. But sometimes this doesn’t happen.
Sometimes a rapper is given an absolute blessing of an instrumental, and what they do with it ends
up making it feel more like a missed opportunity than anything else. So today, I’m gonna be sharing
with you a few songs where I feel like rappers wasted great beats that they were given for a
variety of reasons. This is CDTVProductions, and let’s talk about when rappers waste a great beat.
Jay-Z “Beach Is Better”
If you’ve never listened to this song yourself, you’re probably questioning why the hell
it’s here. It sounded good in the snippet I played right? Jay was flowing over it nicely,
he sounded good. But who the hell decided this song should be 56 seconds long? It doesn’t even
have a slow fade out or anything to show you that the track is coming to a close, the beat is
slapping ass and taking names, Jay Z is doing the same, and then it literally just stops.
Like just, flat out stops. So abruptly. And what we’re left with is a snippet,
a snippet of what could’ve been an amazing and replayable track over this dark, sparkling Mike
WiLL Made It & Marz instrumental if it just had even one more minute or so to its runtime. It’s
not even like JAY-Z raps for the full 56 seconds as well, 15 seconds of that is a build up of the
instrumental to open the track up. It is a song that leaves you wanting more, but not even really
in a good way, because it leaves you wanting so much more that I personally rarely come back to
it. There is a way to make incredibly short tracks work, for sure, but I don’t think taking what is,
a very typically structured rap song and just cutting it off early for no real reason is the
way to do that. I’m sure for some people the short length makes the track more replayable for them,
and I can see that, but for me personally, it’s just too frustrating to revisit often.
NAV “I Am”
Metro, Metro, Metro... you’re doing way too much with this beat to be giving it to NAV.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Metro Boomin and NAV are pretty solid together, Perfect Timing is
probably my favourite NAV project, but he really didn’t make good use of this beautifully dark and
layered instrumental. It’s probably my favourite beat on the project, but NAV’s rapping stops it
from being my favourite song on it. Although NAV is one of the producers on this track, so at least
he was involved in some way with the best part of it. The producers here did an excellent job with
that low, buzzing synth line, the ghostly bell sounds, and the bouncy drums, it’s a typically
great nocturnal instrumental, that you would expect from a track that Metro is involved with.
And then king of Toronto, step aside Mr Tesfaye, came through and used a single, unchanging flow
for the entire track. If you can take the very first line in a song, and then can
rap that line throughout the entire rest of the song and it lines up pretty perfectly...
that is how you make a song boring in my opinion. Agh, just listening to it for this
segment of the video, this beat is so good. *15 racks, 20 racks, 30 racks, I got them bands. x7*
It lines up with the whole thing. I’m not saying every song ever needs to have
more elaborate flows or constant flow switches, but come on NAV. Throw 1 in
there just for the fun of it. It certainly would’ve made this song much better overall.
Smokepurpp “The Matrix”
It’s Smokepurpp doing his best Travis Scott impression over
a beat that could’ve just went to Travis Scott. Next.
Hopsin “Money On the Side”
Not only is this one of the hardest hitting beats that Hopsin has produced, it actually also has one
of the best hooks he’s ever recorded. If you know Hopsin, you’ll know he’s been constantly
criticised for how his hooks sound, but the one here is actually pretty smooth and catchy.
Great beat, great hook, great flows from Hopsin throughout the verses even.
So that begs the question... what is it that ruins this song for me? It's the subject matter.
The album this song comes from is called No Shame, and Hopsin really wanted to make sure that phrase
applied to this album because he shamelessly raps about some pretty awkward stuff here. Happy
Ending is a great example I’ve touched on pretty heavily before, no pun intended, and this one is
in the same category as that track. To sum it up quickly, this is an entire song about a nineteen
year old girl that this, at the time, 32 year old man was paying for sex, describing every single
explicit detail, highlights being “stick a finger in her b**** and she like it”, “I’m diving into
her number 1 and her number 2” and “I fly her out often, like b**** come get this chocolate d***”,
while also acknowledging that she has a man, and Hopsin knows this, so he’s actively participating
in and enabling cheating, despite being furious at his ex girlfriend earlier in the album for
cheating on him. He even acknowledges that this girl doesn’t really WANT to sleep with him,
but she’s just doing it out of necessity because she doesn’t really have any money of her own,
and Hopsin uses this song to celebrate that fact. Can we just ban Hopsin from talking
about sex? I don’t think it’s ever resulted in a good song. I’ve talked about this song
before in my 10 Worst Hopsin Lyrics video, but I just had to bring it up again here because
it fits the topic of rappers ruining great beats so well. I just really wish he used
this instrumental with drums that slap THIS hard to talk about something else.
Because the way it is, I have to completely tune out what the song is about to be able to enjoy it.
Kid Buu “Poppa”
Let’s just be real for a second. If you give your instrumental to Kid Buu of all people,
it automatically becomes a wasted beat. Here he does his best Lil Uzi Vert vocal impression, which
sounds nothing like his real voice by the way, while rapping fast about essentially nothing.
It also has an awful, awkward Genius Verified interview attached to it. Kid Buu: "I don't
really take percs to be honest. Like, if my fans are wondering. I don't-I don't- I only like,
smoke pot" *A few moments later* "What inspired me? My back was hurting. I popped a percocet,
some girl gave me one". "So it took about 8-10 minutes for us to make Poppa. Uh, 'cause I did
it all in like, a freestyle take." Yeah, not really surprised about that. "I consider myself
born a peasant, but will die a king of many nations". *CDTV laughing at the ridiculousness*
That's the funniest thing he's said in this video. Pretty much all I have to say about that one.
Lil Skies “Mhmmm”
I like Lil Skies a lot man, but sometimes it just really just feels like he talks over a beat
and calls it a day. I have no problem with the chill vibe a lot of his music has,
that’s cool, but it’s when he turns it all the way down to 0,
like he does here. I remember my first listen of this song, I got so hyped up when I heard
that amazing string loop come in during the chorus of this T-Minus produced beat,
and it got me thinking, like; what is Lil Skies gonna do with this beat? How is he gonna sound?
How is he gonna flow over this? This is the last track on the album, is he gonna close it out with
something special? And then Skies started rapping and all that excitement just deflated like a
balloon with a pin stuck inside it. And then I was reminded that life is full of disappointment. That
production during the hook is SO hard, the drums bounce off that elegant but dramatic string loop
perfectly, but the energy is just not reflected by the Skies performance. And if that wasn’t bad
enough, he drops his delivery down even further during the verses to an even more sleepy tone.
It was a really underwhelming performance to bring the Unbothered album to a close with, with the
lack of life in his voice only being emphasised by the great production T-Minus gave the track.
Lil Uzi Vert “Two”
Tell me why, tell me why... Lil Uzi starts Luv Is Rage 2 with a song that takes 1 minute
and 17 seconds to actually start. I just wanna hear this man flow and sound cool over a beat,
but Two starts with a minute of Lil Uzi talking in autotune as the instrumental plays in the
background... and it drives me insane. The beat sounds good Uzi, why don’t you just rap? He drones
on for so long about other rappers biting him that by the time this song actually starts, I don’t
care. *Don't care. Don't care. Don't care. Still don't care. I don't care. I don't. I don't care.
What'd you say? I just wanna know what you said. What did you say? I DON'T CARE.*. Maybe I can
tolerate it if it’s the first time I’ve listened to this song in a long time, but outside of that
it completely kills the replay value for me. And I’m very particular about how I listen to music
so skipping forward in a song just to get past a part I don’t like doesn’t feel right to me, so I
have to choose between awkwardly losing the flow of the song to skip forward which I hate doing, or
enduring Uzi’s ramblings which I don’t like either and I just don’t really have that much time when
Ps & Qs is a great song that exists with a similar accordion based beat. This could’ve been like a
nice part 2 to Ps & Qs with its similar sound, but instead it turns out as a pretty skippable track.
Tyga “Werkkkk”
A lot of Tyga songs could qualify for this video to be honest because...
you’re giving your beat to Tyga. But this is one of the most egregious examples out there.
IMAGINE if a beat like this, with this glamorous summertime Bay Area feel to it,
was given to a great rapper (or group of rappers) from that region. More specifically I’m thinking
about SOB X RBE. That would’ve slapped in my opinion. They’re not together as a group
anymore but they were when this song dropped in 2019 so this beat going towards them instead
could have been a thing. Daboii in particular would’ve absolutely glided over this beat with his
aggressive flow and Yhung T.O. would’ve provided some slick melodies for it. But instead we get
Tyga autocrooning about sex which just always sounds off-putting to me, partly because of his
barely legal relationship with Kylie Jenner years ago. You’re gonna work that body and tell nobody
indeed Tyga. Tyga just manages to make sex sound so unsexy every single time he raps about it.
The way he tries so hard to rap intimately into the microphone never fails to give me chills.
Mustard, next time you make a beat like this, keep it away from the self-proclaimed c*** ripper.
So, that was a few songs where I personally feel like rappers wasted the instrumentals that they
were given. What do you guys think about this little list I have, and
are there any in your opinion where you feel like a rapper wasted a great beat?
Let me know down in the comments below. And of course I would greatly appreciate you leaving a
like if you've stuck through to this point in the video and you enjoyed what you saw. On the screen
right now are all my Patrons so thank you so much to all of them for supporting the channel. And a
special shout out to my top supporters on there, those are Caleb Peeples, Tyson, Raegan Burt,
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guys all by name now. And yeah, that's gonna be it for today guys, so thank you so much for watching,
I will see you all in the next one, and this is CDTVProductions... signing out.