Here's Vol. 1 from March, and here's the Spotify playlist of all the remixes I've covered this year. 

On TikTok, it's popular to make "duets" where one person posts a song with an "open verse" instrumental section for other people can add vocals to. And Russ, love him or hate him, has always pretty shrewd about marketing himself and using the Internet to his advantage, and recently became I think the first established star who turned a TikTok duet with an unknown into an official remix that charted on the Hot 100. I'm not too into the original "Handsomer," but Ktlyn definitely improves on the song, it's easy to picture this launching her career much like Russ's "Best On Earth" did for Bia. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+

Mississippi rapper MoHead Mike has been steadily growing his breakout single "Put That Pussy On Me" for a long time -- he released the original solo track in 2020, then it became bigger with the first remix with Memphis rapper Big Boogie in 2021. And now a much more famous Memphis rapper, Moneybagg Yo, has jumped on the 2022 version. This is probably the dozenth rap hit to use the squeaking loop from Trillville's "Some Cut" (one of which, incidentally, was Russ's "Best On Earth"), and this song really doesn't add much of value to the original loop besides some especially bawdy lyrics. Moneybagg's verse is good but Big Boogie's very quotable "no bologna" verse still feels like the star attraction. 

Missouri-by-way-of-Michigan rapper SleazyWorld Go's breakthrough single got social media props from everyone from Lil Nas X to Jack Harlow to Lil Durk, so it's not surprising that he got a huge star for the official remix. I don't really understand the appeal of the song that made it blow up but Baby sounds great on this beat. 

Omeretta The Great went viral with "Sorry Not Sorry," a song kind of drawing a line in the sand between 'the real Atlanta' and the many rappers repping the city who moved from other areas or grew up in towns on the outskirts of Atlanta. The song provoked responses from some rappers, including Ludacris, who ripped a great answer song over the beat, and got Omeretta signed to 300. The official remix appropriately features Latto, who recently became the first female rapper from Atlanta to go gold and platinum and several other milestones. And I think Omeretta is a much better rapper, but Latto holds her own on here and stays in the spirit of the song while challenging its premise: "So Migos is not Atlanta (huh)? 21 is not Atlanta (what)? Ciara is not Atlanta (the fuck)?" 

JNR Choi is not one of the biggest rappers in the UK, but with "To The Moon" he accomplished something that defining figures of British hip hop like Stormzy and Dizzee Rascal never have: an American rap radio hit. A remix with Gunna helped, but I mostly hear the original version of "To The Moon" on the radio, and now there's a posse cut that unites UK Drill (Russ Millions), Chicago drill (G Herbo) and Brooklyn drill (Fivio Foreign), which I don't think has ever been done on one song before. 

For better or worse, Ed Sheeran is both one of pop's schmaltziest singer/songwriters and a huge hip hop fan who loves to mix those two worlds to better. When I saw that he'd remixed a song from his latest album called "2step," I liked the idea of Lil Baby rapping over a 2-step garage beat, but this song sounds more like a generic acoustic guitar loop beat like DaBaby's "Rockstar," and the song is pretty boring with or without Baby. 

Carol City, Florida's Denzel Curry and Memphis's Key Glock are both kind of middle tier stars who are very good at what they do in different southern rap ecosystems that rarely intersect. And it's really surprising and cool to hear Key Glock on the most popular song from Curry's Melt My Eyez See Your Future, it's not a simple mainstream-meets-underground or conscious-meets-gangsta crossover moment but something a little more nuanced and interesting. 

Skillibeng is a Jamaican dancehall star, but "Whap Whap" already has a little of the dark ominous feel of New York rap and Fivio and French are a good fit for this remix. 

In April, a Live Nation "women empowerment" initiative called Femme It Forward released a compilation album, Big Femme Energy, Vol. 1 featuring songs by artists like Rapsody and Tierra Whack. And now the most popular song from the album, by New Orleans singer Ambre, has a remix! With a dude! And it's not any good!

Houston rapper Monaleo's single "We Not Humping" is a very entertaining song. And Flo Milli is absolutely the right artist with the right attitude to jump on a remix, although she doesn't steal the spotlight from Monaleo as I might've expected her to, it's still very clear whose song it is. Love the "y'all be weak in the knees, stand up!" ad lib at the end. 

Given the way Quavo and Takeoff recently began releasing music as a duo, and Offset unfollowed them on Instagram, prompting Migos breakup rumors, there's a possibility that "We Set The Trends," released in December, may be the last time we hear all three of them on a song together. Not a very notable song in any other respect though, in any version. 

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