I must admit that I cringed a little when I heard that Kanye West was teaming up with Raekwon and Justin Bieber for a song. Look, I have nothing against the Bieb-he’s a talented kid. I just wasn’t sure how the three were going to mesh, and I was also giving Kanye the side-eye for teaming up with the hot flavor of the moment and sacrificing his artistic integrity. But honestly? I’d rather Kanye do records with JB than do records with the likes of Young Jeezy.
Anyway, the track (“Runaway Love”) premiered today and you can stream it on the website of radio and TV personality Miss Info. Truthfully, it’s not a bad track, although I (like the first commenter) feel like it’s more of a “Raekwon featuring Justin Bieber & Kanye West) song than Justin feat. Raekwon & Kanye. Bieber is easily the least memorable part of the song. Raekwon (who I’ve always thought to be the most generic first-team Wu member) does his thing on the clean-rap tip and Kanye continues his recent lyrical upgrade, walking away with most of the punchlines during his verse. Hey, Pusha T and Malice did a record with the Backstreet Boys and Dr. Dre was producing records for The Party back in the day, and no one questions their street credibility. So let’s say that “Runaway Love” is pretty decent as far as Top 40 teen pop goes, the song will continue to get JB some crossover love from the “106” crowd, a whole generation of white pre-teens might jump on the Wu wagon a couple of years before they normally would (freshman year in college?) and Kanye’s still some kind of mad genius.
1 comment
GG says:
Aug 30, 2010
I kind of dig it. On the plus side, it’s a song featuring Kanye that I can play for the kids without having to buy the clean version for.
On the negative side, they may like Rae and I won’t be able to show them anything else he’s done, at least in a clean version.