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

TheRealmiss BabyDee is from Alabama and Diamond The Body is from Florida and one of those Zeus network reality show quasi-celebrities. "Boundaries" is a pretty good song, weird beat with minimal drums and lots of chaotic voices layered over each other, Saucy Santana has fun with it but doesn't really add much to the song. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+ 

Baton Rouge rapper H3adband released "Dat Sound" last year, or at least did it on one of those YouTube performance channels where people rap into a microphone hanging from the sky, before "Boo" became his mainstream breakthrough a few months ago. But "Dat Sound" either never made it to streaming services, or was pulled for some reason, until he released the song in July alongside a remix with Boosie -- surprisingly neither version of "Dat Sound" is on the album H3adband released in August, go figure. I like hearing Boosie on this song, but his vocals are really poorly mixed/recorded.   

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

"Freak" is a pretty good new jack swing pastiche, maybe a notch below what did Bruno Mars did on "Finesse," and JT's verse on this even kind of reminds me of Cardi on the Bruno remix. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

I liked one of Pluto's albums, but she got a lot less feature work than YKNiece after they both broke through with "Whim Whamiee," and I kind of understand why listening to Pluto's verse on here, it's just not good at all. Luh Nae is another young female Atlanta rapper who's kind of throwing back to the snap music/swag era, "Geeked Shit" wasn't produced by Zaytoven but it sounds so Zaytoven, I like the beat more than the song. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: D

Philadelphia rapper Surf7 released his debut single "Goose Coat" in June (or at least his first song on streaming services, he had another song on Soundcloud a few weeks before that), and then got the biggest rapper from his city on the remix in July, that's pretty cool, he's really hitting the ground running. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

No female country singer was as big in 2004 as Ella Langley is in 2026, but Gretchen Wilson came pretty close with "Redneck Woman" -- she was even the target of the very first Kanye West awards show tantrum when she won Favorite Breakthrough Artist over him at the AMAs. Wilson's run at the top was pretty short-lived, though. She had a few more hits, including "Here For The Party," but she hasn't really had a successful single since 2005 or any album at all since 2017. So it was a bit of a coup for her to get the biggest current star to sing on a re-recorded version of a song that came out when Langley was five years old. Wilson was never a great vocalist, and at her current age, Langley really upstages her. Actually, it's actually nice to hear Langley sing something that's a little rowdier than her solo stuff usually is. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

I didn't realize there's a Latin pop star from Venezuela who calls himself Danny Ocean, I saw the guest credit on this remix and my brain went "that's not...Billy Ocean? Frank Ocean? George Clooney?" I like his verse on this, though, his voice reminds me a little of J Balvin but more melodic. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

Nino Paid is probably the biggest current rapper from Prince George's County, Maryland, where I live, and he sounds surprisingly natural on the breakout hit by Louisiana rapper 318dman. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+ 

The beat on "In My Pockets" already sounded like the kind of thing BossMan Dlow usually raps on, so he takes to the remix pretty naturally, almost sounds like his song now. Only the clean version is on Spotify, that's pretty annoying. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

Fredo Bang is pretty low on the list of Louisiana rap stars that I think a new Louisiana rapper would want on a remix of a song called "Louisiana," I don't know if he'd even make the top 10, but he has a decent verse on here. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

I don't like Jason DeRulo as much as Pitbull, but I think DeRulo has a Pitbull-like ability to keep piggybacking onto different songs and trends and stay relevant. DJ Goja is a Romanian producer who made an Afrobeats-inspired track that went viral, and then DeRulo and Brazilian singer Melody jumped on it, and now that's the version that's on pop radio. 

Best Verse: Melody

Overall Grade: C+

A cappella bars at his recent concerts notwithstanding, this remix has the first new Jay-Z verse on record in nearly 4 years (the last one was DJ Khaled's "God Did"). "Morning Dew (Donk)" was already kind of a odd little curio, a leaked 2013 outtake that got polished and officially released for the forthcoming reissue of Beyonce's 2006 album B'Day. And this remix is just really playful and weird, throwing Soulja Boy and Sheck Wes and Isley Brothers samples and Goodie Mob lyrics into the pot. The public response to the remix, as far as I've seen, has been overwhelmingly negative, but I think it's kind of an enjoyable minor thing. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

You're here on my blog so you probably know that I wrote an entire book about Baltimore club music, and possibly also that I was pretty excited that Baltimore punk breakout band Turnstile's Grammy-winning album Never Enough featured an extended Baltimore club homage on the single "Look Out for Me." On Friday, Turnstile released Never Enough: Versions, which collects remixes and covers from a surreal spectrum of artists including Elton John, Slayyyter, Dying Fetus, and Alex G. For me, though, the big news is that Baltimore club legend Rod Lee turns the #1 rock radio hit "Never Enough" into a Paradox-era club banger with a Brendan Yates vocal loop. I especially love Rod Lee going "I'm about to break it down with my boy Brendan" and the second half of the track where he riffs on the title. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: A

Skrilla is the Philly rapper whose song "Doot Doot (6 7)" birthed the whole "six seven" meme, and my theory is he didn't get very famous off that because his music is awful and almost unlistenable. Skrilla unsurprisingly says the n-word a lot on this song, and Florida rapper 1900Rugrat opens his verse saying "cracka cracka cracka cracka cracka cracka cracka," which is pretty hilarious. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

I covered South Carolina rapper Trim for the first time in one of this year's earlier Remix Report Cards, and immediately clocked that she's influenced by Nicki Minaj, but with each track I hear the Nicki mimicry just seems more and more over-the-top. I kind of rolled my eyes when I heard the "Swag Surfin'" sample on the remix (with a producer tag from Hitmaka, king of lazy samples, no less). But there are also so few rap remixes where there's an actual different beat and it does sound pretty good. The "Nobody" remix initially came out in June with just Monaleo, and then the version with the G. Herbo verse added came out a month later. I would've been happier with the first one, Monaleo kills every feature these days and G. Herbo is overrated as hell. 

Best Verse: Monaleo

Overall Grade: B+ 

At some point Run The Jewels became the default rap music you constantly hear it films, sitcoms, and cartoons, as if every Hollywood music supervisor was just happy to have something recent to put in a scene where they really wanted to use a Beastie Boys song from their adolescence. The 2016 DJ Shadow/Run the Jewels collaboration "Nobody Speak" might have more syncs than any other RTJ song, and I guess this new version is for its 10th anniversary. Denzel Curry and TiaCorine go bar for bar like Jada and Styles surprisingly well, I don't feel like it makes sense to say either has the "best verse" because they both just rap back-and-forth together, but they're good on it. I still don't like the beat, though, like, this is the guy who made Endtroducing. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

Naika is a singer from Miami with one French parent and one Haitian parent, her pretty good debut album Eclesia came out in February and the single "One Track Mind" was a major hit in France. Jessie Reyez's voice didn't annoy me on this as much as usual, but the version with French rap star Kalash is definitely better.  

Best Verse: Kalash

Overall Grade: C+

I covered Stunna Sandy in this column last year before she broke through with her recent Drake collaboration, she's basically an Ice Spice knockoff who's even more attractive but makes even worse music. The original "Rollin'" featured Cash Cobain, his frequent collaborator Bay Swag is a natural fit for the remix but his verse isn't as good. 

Best Verse: Bay Swag

Overall Grade: C+

I thought at first that 42kbrook/Pookielean was a duo but it's just one guy -- from what I can tell, after Baton Rouge rapper 42kbrook blew up with the viral song/dance move "Pookie Lean" last year, he changed his artist handle on streaming services to 42kbrook/Pookielean to really lean into (no pun intended) his claim to fame. Maybe if "Shoulders" gets big enough he'll change his name to 42kbrook/Shoulders. Okay song, H3adband makes it slightly better I guess. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+ 

London singer Tamera Foster didn't win when she competed on "The X-Factor," but Simon Cowell still signed her to his label and called her 'the British Rihanna.' Tamera was the opening act on Jessie Reyez's tour last year, so it's a smart move to have her on a remix of her latest single, but "Sinner" is a really good song, and Reyez's voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me, here much more than on the Naika remix. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: D 

I think "Spend Dat" sucks, although I don't feel like it's bringing about the downfall of society like some people seem to. The song had already peaked in both streams and radio spins and started to decline before Yung Miami announced that a remix was coming, maybe she gain restore the song's momentum with these two remixes but I kind of hope not. I will always give credit to artists who record a new verse for their own remixes because that's rare these days, and Yung Miami actually did two new verses, one for each of these remixes, that impressed me. I don't think any of the guests really came with it, though, Kodak is straight up incoherent. 

Best Verse: Davido

Overall Grade: C+

Despite so much modern American pop being written and produced by Swedes, there's a pretty small number of Swedish pop singers in my lifetime (post-ABBA) who have been commercially successful in America -- it's basically Robyn, Tove Lo, and Zara Larsson, and that's it. And I'm glad Robyn and Zara have been working together, Robyn appeared on the Midnight Sun: Girls Trip remix album earlier this year, and now Zara's on a good retitled version of Robyn's single "Talk To Me." 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

Everybody in the neoclassicist cratedigger street rap lane gets hailed as the second coming on the internet, including 38 Spesh and Rome Streetz. I'm not super into either but I like Rome Streetz a little more of the two, so I think he adds something to this song. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+ 

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