Here's Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and the Spotify playlist of all the remixes I've covered so far this year. 

I've always done this column in alphabetical order by song title, and I like that system, but I'm annoyed because my last three Remix Report Cards have started with 4batz because all his song titles start with the word "act." Knock it off! I was never too impressed with 4batz, but doing all these remixes with Drake and Kanye and Usher has definitely sanded off any sense that he was a fresh new voice, now he just sounds like another one of those iffy kids that a bunch of aging stars work with to stay relevant. This is the best of those remixes, though, Ursher always sounds good. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

I wasn't familiar with Ludmilla, but apparently she's from Brazil and she's got a billion streams on Spotify. Based on this remix, though, I think she's really talented, I enjoyed her verse just based on her flow and vocal ability even though it's in Portuguese and I don't know what she was saying. I think it would've been cool to get Ludmilla and an established American guest on this remix, but props to Kehlani for doing something forward-thinking. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+ 

Hulvey is a white Christian rapper from Georgia and "Altar" is the latest in a string of hits he's had on Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart. Ciara's never been the kind of R&B singer who has a lot of gospel in her voice, but this isn't really a gospel song anyway and she sounds pretty good on this song, even if it's not the kind of thing I'd go out of my way to listen to. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

I think a lot of rappers could've had fun on this track but NLE Choppa is a pretty good choice, he already has a lot of experience rapping on these kinds of clap-clap-clap beats and has a nice melodic flow that works as a counterpoint to J.P.'s voice. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+

NLE Choppa has been by far the most frequent remix guest rapper in this column the last few years, I don't know if he just loves jumping on records and makes his rate affordable or if he's just in that sweet spot of being pretty popular but not too big to do a lot of features. In any case, it's funny that he's in this column twice consecutively with similarly titled songs. Don't really need to hear him on a Jamaican dancehall song, though. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C- 

It definitely felt like Ariana Grande writing a completely new song under the same title as a famous old #1 hit was done with a wink, but I didn't expect her to grab the artists from that hit for a cameo in the video, and then a remix. It made for a pretty fun moment, though, I'm glad it happened. I don't like to play into the decades of fans choosing sides between Brandy and Monica and egging on their on-again-off-again feud, especially because doing this Ariana video and remix was apparently a really good moment in their relationship. But choosing the best guest verse on each remix is part of the column, and while Brandy is the better overall vocalist, I love how Monica sounds on her best songs, and she fits into this track a little more naturally than Brandy. 

Best Verse: Monica

Overall Grade: B

One of the things I continually lament in this column is that rap remixes almost never feature a new verse from the artist who made the original song, usually they just cut-and-paste their first verse from the other version. So I have to give props to Monaleo, she made a new verse for the remix that's arguably better than either verse from the original "Don Who Leo," and also outshines the guest. 

Best Verse: Monaleo

Overall Grade: A-

I have no memory of the Memphis group Kinfolk Thugs releasing the original "Dump Truck" back in 2008, but I guess it must been a regional hit that got YouTube plays in the low millions at the time -- I never knew that Lil Wayne was quoting someone else's song with the "back it up and dump it" line on his "Every Girl" verse. And apparently "Dump Truck" had a recent viral resurgence on TikTok, and so they've capitalized on it with a remix featuring the same guy who's on a million remixes these days. NLE Choppa does his super horny post-"Slut Me Out" thing on his verse, which works well enough for this song. 

Best Verse: NLE Choppa

Overall Grade: B-

Last year, Harrison Patrick aka The Dare got lots of press and skeptical reviews with a trashy aesthetic inspired by the early 2000s electroclash "indie sleaze" era. "Guess," one of the new songs on Brat and it's the same but there's three more songs so it's not, is produced by Patrick, and co-written by Patrick and one of the members of 100 Gecs, and it's a pretty stupid song. But the "Guess" remix, like the "Girl, So Confusing" remix, improves upon the original by turning it into a duet with another alt-pop icon, although "Guess" is still all flirty provocation, not a therapy session. And the "Guess" remix leapfrogged over "Girl, So Confusing" to also become Charli's biggest Hot 100 hit since 2014. I supposed the only way she can top this is if Taylor Swift does a remix of the Brat blind item song about her, "Sympathy Is A Knife." 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

There's a long and interesting history of songs named after other artists, from The Replacements' "Alex Chilton" to Taylor Swift's "Tim McGraw." But when I saw that a guy I'd never heard of had a song on the Hot 100 called "Kehlani," I was in no rush to hear it because there have been a flood of semi-unknown dudes who seemed to be gaming streaming numbers by naming stupid songs after famous women like Armani White's "Billie Eilish" or Moone Walker's "Lizzo." So I was pleasantly surprised that "Kehlani" is a pretty good song, and Kehlani's inevitable feature on the remix works pretty well too. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

When "Nasty" was first going viral and Tinashe started teasing a remix, people on Twitter told her they didn't want any male artists on the remix and she responded that she might put a guy on the remix just to spite them. In the end, we got two his'n'hers remixes, but both are kind of disappointingly with C-list artists past their prime, when I hoped that maybe Tinashe would team up with some superstar or currently hot artist to take the song to another level. Tyga opens his verse with an on-the-nose Vanity 6 quote, which sounds absolutely awful in his bored rap dude voice, but Chloe Bailey's remix is pretty good. 

Best Verse: Chloe Bailey

Overall Grade: C+

A few weeks ago, 18-year-old New York singer Laila! confirmed rumors that she's the daughter of Mos Def. And then Cash Cobain remixed her single "Not My Problem" with 14 other rappers who her father probably thinks make good soundtracks for shopping at Target. A 'sexy drill' song that goes on for almost 8 minutes is not a good idea, especially because everyone's doing the same kind of "Oh Boy"-style verse where rappers let Laila! saying "problem" or "not my problem" finish their sentence. There are more bad verses than good ones on here, and the last four verses are particularly dire. And then the drums start to switch up in the last few seconds of Rob49's verse, almost taunting you that this remix could've been a lot less monotonous. 

Best Verse: Lay Bankz

Overall Grade: D

I always thought the Compton rapper Boogie had a branding issue with so many other rappers with 'boogie' in their name, and he seems to have solved that by renaming himself Westside Boogie. He sounds good on this excellent jazzy drumless track by Oakland rapper 1100 Himself, might have to check out more music by that guy. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

NLE Choppa's original 2022 single "Slut Me Out" had remixes with Sexyy Red and Sukihana, and now the sequel, which is really a whole different song that's just also very horny, also has multiple remixes. I think NLE Choppa just loves the remix game, man. J.P. is from Milwaukee so I'm not sure why he's on the campy country music-themed remix, but whatever, it's kind of fun. The other three are dance remixes with new beats but the same vocals from the original, and honestly all these remixes are pretty good. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

J. Cole named one of the songs on Might Delete Later after a lyric shouting out the veteran Houston rapper Trae Tha Truth, and Trae made an unbilled spoken cameo at the end of the track. Unsurprisingly, a few months later we got a version of the song with a proper Trae verse, and I like how he sounds on that beat. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

As I mentioned earlier in this column, Moone Walker's biggest hit was named after Lizzo, so I'm amused that he's now on a song by someone named Lizzen. He sounds kind of out of place on a sad slow jam like "Why," though, Robin Thicke is a much more natural fit. Weirdly, Lizzen released the remix with Thicke in April, and then Thicke released a shorter edit of it as "Why 2.0" that's only 1 minutes and 44 seconds.  

Best Verse: Robin Thicke

Overall Grade: B-

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