In light of how many remixes are coming out these days, it's interesting to note that Drake seemed to have soured on remixes at some point. In the 2010s, he'd often jump on a hit by a rising artist and give an early co-sign to Future, Migos, ILoveMakonnen, Wizkid, Fetty Wap, or Summer Walker. Drake still collaborates with a lot of new artists, but remixing their songs is rare -- 4Batz is only the second artist this decade to be anointed with a Drake remix, after Yung Bleu. I'm generally not against songs being under 2 minutes, but the original "Act II: Date @ 8" never totally felt like a complete song to me, just a miniature to establish 4Batz's schticky "high-voiced guy sings romantic lyrics in a ski mask" schtick. So Drake showing up to riff on 4Batz's melody and double the song length actually works pretty well, I think. 4Batz's style meshes with Drake here, and for once Drake gets to be "the deep-voiced guy on teh track," 4Batz doing an EP with OVO isn't a bad idea. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

L.A. rapper Blueface had a brief run of chart success 5 years ago, but he's had a long tail of trainwreck tabloid fame with his on-again-off-again relationship with a Baltimore woman named Chrisean Rock (they met on his OnlyFans reality show. which you'd think would be a good foundation for a healthy relationship). Last year Blueface and Chrisean had a baby and broke up, and Blueface is now dating JaidynAlexis. "Barbie" is a gross little song that's full of mean references to Chrisean, with Blueface approvingly ad libbing all over the track (yes, JaidynAlexis is mocking the woman who gave birth to her boyfriend's child six months ago). Now there's also a remix with a typically shit Blueface verse on it, where he also disses Soulja Boy and NLE Choppa. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: F 

Late last year a Florida producer named JRitt made a track called "Benjamins Deli" out of samples of Puffy Daddy's "It's All About The Benjamins," Ice Spice's "Deli," and Blaqstarr's Baltimore club classic "Get My Gun." It became a dance challenge on TikTok and Jimmy Fallon and a million other people made videos to it, and now a song made of a random assemblage of samples also has a remix with a random assemblage of guests. I mean, JRitt and Trina are both from Florida and Shaq played for Orlando, maybe that's the connection? In any sense, it's very weird to write about Shaq in two consecutive Remix Report Cards. Even weirder, Shaq sounds better on this track than Trina, who I love and who usually kills guest verses, but she's going for some kind of ballroom emcee vibe on here that doesn't totally work. And whoever Zekedon is pretty much ruins the remix with a bad Lil Jon impression, like literally doing a bunch of famous Lil Jon ad libs verbatim, almost like it was a scratch vocal and they were hoping to get the real Lil Jon. 

Best Verse: Shaquille O'Neal

Overall Grade: C

Another remix with Trina on an atypical track, but this one works out a little better. Apparently Houston-based singer Inayah released "Best Thing" way back in 2019, but I'd never heard it before, and it's a really lovely song, a downtempo guitar-driven track that borrows its melody from the Luniz hit "I Got 5 On It." For whatever reason, Trina remixed the song this year, and it's really good, there's a little more percussion on the remix than the original but it's not a full-on club banger remix (although there was a bounce remix with Big Freedia back in '19). 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+ 

ScarLip and NLE Choppa doesn't seem like a great combination on paper, but they're both good on this track, although ScarLip's hook is pretty annoying.  

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

Now and then, a really unpolished rapper with a lot of raw charisma grabs the zeitgeist and becomes a phenomenon, and people tend to either love them or think they're a harbinger of the downfall of society. Chief Keef played that role a decade ago, and right now Sexyy Red is playing that role, so it makes a weird sort of sense for them to be on a track together. There was a moral panic when Big Sexyy released "Bow Bow Bow (F My Baby Dad)" while pregnant, but it's at least kind of a goofy, lighthearted song. On the remix, Chief Keef raps longer and with more passion than I've ever heard from him before, he goes like 44 bars plus doing his own personalized versions of the hooks, threatening violence and murder several times, it really sounds like he genuinely hates his baby mama's guts and was just unloading all is anger at her, it gets pretty uncomfortable at some point. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C

"Can't Get Enough" is a pretty middling single, but it sounds a lot better when Latto's verse comes in over that beat switch. When JLo performed on "Saturday Night Live" a few weeks ago, Latto showed up to do the "Can't Get Enough" remix, but Redman also made a surprise appearance to rap a new verse over another beat switch, to his 1999 hit "Da Goodness," I kinda wish there was a studio version of that. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

"Doomsday" was recorded way back in 2019 with Cordae and the late Juice WRLD going bar-for-bar over the beat from Eminem's "Role Model," but the song didn't get released until this year for Lyrical Lemonade's album. So the album also features a sequel track with Em rapping over a sort of remix of the "Role Model" beat with the same guitar loop slowed down over a more loping beat. Some people think Eminem hasn't made a listenable song in over a decade and some people think he's still one of the best rappers alive, I don't feel too strongly either way. But this is one of his better verses in recent memory, he's not rapping in Slim Shady LP flows or anything but he's a little more calm and casual, none of that yelling over-the-top shit, even though he's dissing Benzino for most of the track. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

For a decade, French Montana was the artist who turned up in Remix Report Cards the most often that I was never happy to see, the king of filler verses to make songs more Hot 97-friendly. "Drift" is a little darker and more aggressive than most of the Afrobeats/dancehall that's crossed over to American radio in recent years, so it makes a little sense to put a rapper on it, but I like that Davido adds a little more melody in his remix. 

Best Verse: Davido

Overall Grade: B-

Benny sounds pretty good on this beat but he's not fucking with Black Thought's verse from the original "Drug Trade." 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B 

I hate that we barely ever get posse cut remixes anymore, but some songs will have several remixes with one guest rapper on each of them, it's so stupid. The Remy Ma remix has about three times as many streams as the other six streams combined, and it might as well be the only that exists, nobody cares about any of these other rappers, especially Dave East. Of the others, Don Q is the best and Jenn Carter is the worst. 

Best Verse: Remy Ma

Overall Grade: C+

I've never heard L.A. rapper HoodTrophy Bino before, but apparently he sucks enough that Kalan.FrFr sounds really good by comparison. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

London rapper Ceechynaa only has two songs out, but they're great and filthy and funny, and I feel like she has a lot of potential to have more success in America than the average UK rap star. NLE Choppa is kind of the mid-level southern rap star that gets on everybody's remix these days, though, and his sex rhymes are really kind of gross and over-the-top, he's really turning his brand into "freaky frog," I don't think this has a better chance of blowing in America than the original "Last Laugh." 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

Not really into this song by Florida singer Jacari, but I like TiaCorine and her voice adds a little something to the track. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

The So So Def group the Ghost Town DJ's are one of the great one-off acts of all time for their classic 1996 single "My Boo," which has inspired many subsequent songs, including Muni Long's excellent 2022 single "Baby Boo." And I guess since Muni Long's latest hit "Made For Me" was produced by Jermaine Dupri, she was able to hook up with Ghost Town DJ's to remix the song, which is pretty badass. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

I just raved about this song last week, I didn't have high hopes for Finesse2tymes being on the remix, but he kicks kind of a different flow than I've heard from him before, maybe he's not as predictable and one-dimensional as I thought. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: A-

This is the billionth remake of Silkk the Shocker's "It Ain't My Fault" and not a particularly good one, Pretty Porcelain has a terrible rap voice, but Trina comes through and puts the right attitude on the track. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

Grouptherapy is apparently a group comprised of three former child actors. Tyrel Jackson Williams was funny on "Brockmire" and "Party Down," but I don't think much of him as a rapper, his verse almost sounds like the engineer didn't line it up to the beat right. The beat's nice, though, and Tate has a funny, filthy verse. 

Best Verse: n/a 
Overall Grade: B 

This song started out as kind of a remix of Rob49's "Ron Artest," so it's funny that "Never Lose Me" itself now has several remixes. The Lil Yachty and Tiller remixes came out last year, and then in early 2024 the Flo Milli solo version blew up. Some of the local radio stations here persistently play the Yachty remix as if the song needs him, when they haven't played Yachty with any regularity in 5 years, and so I've really grown to hate his verse, which features charming lines like "snack on yo booty like Scooby" and "put it in your three holes like a looseleaf." Flo Milli teased way back in January that another remix with SZA was on the way, and it took so long that the song had started to lose momentum, but then it finally dropped with another huge star on it as well, and it really felt like it was worth the wait. 

Best Verse: SZA

Overall Grade: B

"River of Oblivion" is the debut single by Catnis, a "Belgian R&B/pop vocalist with Moroccan roots" who doesn't to appear to have much of an audience in Belgium or Morocco or anywhere else. 2 Chainz is usually an entertainingly outlandish guest rapper, but he just takes his check and turns in a nice solid verse with nothing too memorable, while this terrible no-name B. Taylor immediately says some goofy shit about riding a camel is in his first line on the song.

Best Verse: 2 Chainz

Overall Grade: C-

I'm not much of a fan of Killer Mike, but the original "Run" had an excellent No I.D. beat and a good Young Thug verse, and the remix has neither, so this generic reggae track feels like a downgrade to me.

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: D

If there's a sample that's been done to death even more than "It Ain't My Fault," it's Sister Nancy's "Bam Bam," and "She Ready" does absolutely nothing with the track that hasn't been done before. I like Lola Brooke's verse on the remix, though. 

Best Verse: Lola Brooke
Overall Grade: B-

One of the biggest west coast songs of the past few months, I was surprised that Mustard produced it because I really don't like this track as much as I usually like his productions, it just sounds really goofy and overstuffed. I'm almost impressed by how bad the Blueface verse is, like it's notably worse than his usual terrible rapping, he sounds like he just woke up and raps a lot about hot dogs and buns. The OhGeesy verse really runs circles around most of the other versese on the remix, especially when it ends with a pretty funny Boyz N The Hood reference.

Best Verse: OhGeesy

Overall Grade: B-

K-pop is always pretty heavily indebted to "TRL"-era R&B, and Jung Kook has worked that angle especially hard lately, which is probably why he's had the most solo success in America out of any member of BTS. Putting the one and only Usher next to someone he's influenced is a little unflattering though.  

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+ 

Just like Usher on "Standing Next To You," JT shows up on "3D" to show Jung Kook what he's really trying to do and demonstrates the talent gap, with the added bonus of Timberlake replacing Jack Harlow's regrettable "dead body" verse from the original "3D." 

Best Verse: n/a 
Overall Grade: B

It's a weird quirk of doing these posts in alphabetical order by song title that I have this funny Jung Kook/Flo Milli/Jung Kook/Flo Milli section. Jay Eazy is from the Bronx and "Tomiloka" is a NYC-style soul beat that uses the same Ponderosa Twins Plus One sample made famous by Kanye West's "Bound 2." A different kind of track for Flo Milli, but she sounds good. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

Bossa is a teen rapper from Palm Springs and this song is fucking awful, Kanii's verse is alright but can't save it. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+

I really dig this independent single from North Carolina singer ChloTheGod, I might have to check for her music in the future. And Mick Jenkins, who released one of my favorite rap albums of 2023, sounds great on this beat. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+

Hyperpop, the glitchy, warped take on Top 40 pop beloved by hipsters and critics, has become sort of a shrewd career path for once-aspiring mainstream pop divas to pivot into a cooler type of niche stardom. Charli XCX was one of the first to make that transition and is now kind of the queen of hyperpop, while others like Rebecca Black and Kim Petras have followed in her footsteps. Now Addison Rae, who tried to parlay TikTok fame into major label stardom in 2021 and became a cult hero for her leaked tracks, is the latest hyperpop refugee, and she got the big co-sign of appearing on a remix of Charli XCX's lead single. "Von Dutch" was kind of a below average Charli XCX song, in my opinion, and I much prefer the remix for how A.G. Cook overhauled Finn Keane's track and how Charli and Addison trade lines back and forth. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

Bump J (formerly Bumpy Johnson) was one of the more street rap-leaning Chicago guys in Kanye West's orbit during his rise. Bump J signed a deal with Atlantic, released a Kanye-produced single, got dropped, then, uh, robbed a bank in 2008 and didn't get out of prison until 2017. So he missed what would've been the best years to be a Kanye sidekick and now finally gets the opening verse on a Kanye single in his most embarrassing washed era, pretty sad stuff. Havoc of Mobb Deep's beat for the remix sounds a lot better than the original track, but it's still nothing special, nor is the Durk verse on the remix. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C

The original "West Side" had two Bay Area vets, Too $hort and Mistah F.A.B., and the remix adds a third, E-40. Unfortunately, Dream Ear Productions is a terrible rap and this song sucks, so it feels like a waste of a good 40 Water verse. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

When I saw that Mariah was going to be on a remix of this song, I thought it was interesting because it was the best chance Mariah has had in a while to top the Hot 100 again and tie the Beatles' record for the most #1s. The reaction to the remix was pretty mixed, though, and it did not send the song back to #1 or get even close. I think some of the criticisms of the remix were stupid, but it's definitely a little anticlimactic and I kinda wish they'd wanted until Ariana had a more ideal song to remix with Mariah, or they had just written a new song together. My favorite part is Mariah belting over Ariana's sprechstimme bridge, that's pretty fun. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

Atlanta rapper Hunxho's breakout hit is total dogshit, a whiny AutoTune track where he berates a girlfriend about how he doesn't like her friends. So a remix with the reigning queen of "toxic" R&B, Summer Walker, is kind of inspired, because she basically comes in where the original song ends and sings the other side of the argument and makes some good points, making it into dueling perspectives like Gotye and Kimbra on "Somebody That I Used To Know." I still don't like the song much, but this version is tolerable, this is one instance where the remix becoming the definitive version of the song would be an upgrade.

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

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