Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 03/27/2012 at 11:54 AM Reviews

The Popdust Files: chris brown, dj khaled, lil wayne, nicki minaj, take it to the head

Look, it’s the DJ Khaled track that’ll be played until it frays, much like “I’m On One” did last year! Maybe a little less than “I’m On One” did. It’s almost the same song, swapping Drake for Chris Brown and adding Nicki Minaj as tends to happen. The lineup’s expanded, but the returns are diminishing.

This is a DJ Khaled track, meaning any review’s going to be a list of everyone on the track, how they did, and a little about the beat. So let’s present just that, explicitly:

Chris Brown: Sings the hook like he’s singing into a talk box that’ll splice his voice with Drake’s; is completely adequate. The fact that Chris Brown is repeatedly telling a girl to “take it to the head” is lost on everyone involved, including Chris.

Rick Ross: Putters about talking about riches and prowess with not much inflection at all. In other words, is Rick Ross.

Nicki Minaj: Operates at about 33% of Nicki Minaj verse capacity. She still sounds more awake than anyone else on the track, but if someone told you the track was mislabeled and this wasn’t actually Nicki, you’d believe them.

Lil Wayne: Wanders in, mumbles a bit about pleasing a woman, then isn’t cut off so much as stops midsentence. (It’s written that way on purpose, but the execution’s off.) He mentions being rejuvenated; he doesn’t sound it.

The beat: Produced by The Runners, it’s the best thing about this by far, lush and resonant enough that you can ignore a lot of what we just criticized. It’s probably what you’ll remember an hour after reading this, and it alone is probably responsible for maybe one and a half bolts here.

POPDUST SAYS:
[starreview tpl=16]