Here's Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and the Spotify playlist with every remix I've covered this year: 

"Bed Time (Remix)" by Flo Milli featuring Monaleo and Gloss Up
The Missy-sampling "Bed Time" was one of my favorite tracks on You Still Here, Ho? so I was excited to see that there was a remix with 2 rappers I like. Both verses are good but Gloss Up is one of my favorite rappers right now, would love to hear her on more beats like this. In a more ideal world this would've been a big hit and Missy would've jumped on the remix too. 

Best Verse: Gloss Up

Overall Grade: B+

Leon Thomas was a child actor who co-starred with Ariana Grande on the Nickelodeon series "Victorious" and launched a pretty successful producing/songwriting career after working on Grande's debut album a decade ago. And the single from his first major label album as a solo artist has a remix featuring another singer who's written a lot of Ariana Grande hits. Thomas and Victoria Monet's voices sound good together, this song feels like it's more ideal as a duet. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B

"Dial Drunk" was the sleeper hit single from Vermont singer/songwriter Noah Kahan's third album, but it was the first I'd ever heard of the guy, and shortly after the song showed up on the charts, a remix with a massive guest star became the version that's currently ubiquitous on pop and alternative radio. As much as I like Post Malone more as a pop/rock artist than as a rapper, I don't think the remix is as good as the original. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+ 

A couple weeks ago I raved about Tyrese's latest single, a 7-minute ballad featuring guitar by Lenny Kravitz. And there's also a remix (on YouTube but not on streaming services for some reason) which completely changes the song into a breakbeat-driven banger with a couple of Atlanta rappers, pretty fun track that still has a little of the emotion of the original.
Best Verse: 2 Chainz
Overall Grade: B

The timing of a star-studded remix can be very important in terms of whether it makes an impact or raises the profile of the song. And while I was appalled that Armani White released the "Billie Eilish" remix 8 months after it debuted on the Hot 100, Muni Long released this remix a whopping 17 months after "Hrs & Hrs" had its initial chart breakthrough. Usher sounds great as always but I don't love the song as a duet, beyond the anticlimactic timing of it all. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+ 

Justin Timberlake has had a pretty bad rep with R&B fans for years now, so there was some backlash to the announcement that he'd be on the remix of one of the best R&B hits of 2023, with a lot of people suggesting someone else like Usher should've been on it. It's better than the "Hrs & Hrs" remix, though, JT totally gets that the triplet cadence of the vocal over the waltzing drums is what makes "ICU" sound good and leans into that. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B

Florida rapper iCandy's KC And The Sunshine Band-sampling "Keep Dat N****" blew up on TikTok, and since pop radio takes most of its cues from TikTok, we had the uncomfortable spectacle of a song with the N-word in the title being getting played on White radio but not Black radio. The remix is fun, though, GloRilla toys with a slightly different flow. 
Best Verse: GloRilla
Overall Grade: B

One of the funnier, more surreal viral sensations in recent memory is the backstory of "One Margarita": Sister Cindy, a hateful religious zealot who's been showing up on college campuses for decades to lecture young adults about the evils of premarital sex, was filmed giving a hilarious speech with college kids hooting and hollering like she's a comedian ("if you buy her one margarita she will spread her legs, if you buy her two margaritas, she will pounce right on your penis!"). Then rapper That Chick Angel turned it into a song, with a couple remixes featuring some of the raunchiest rappers of 2023. I think the song is more funny than good, doesn't quite rise to the level of being as instantly iconic as, say, "Pound Town," but most of the verses on the remix are pretty good. 

Best Verse: Flo Milli
Overall Grade: B

A lot of the rap nerds I know on the internet are obsessed with Michigan rap, with its wildly offbeat flows and outrageous punchlines over Bay Area-influenced beats, it's cool I guess. Sada Baby's "Whole Lotta Choppas" was the scene's first mainstream viral success three years ago, and this year Flint rapper YN Jay's "Perc & Sex" inspired a lot of weird TikToks of children and white ladies dancing to a song about fucking on percocets. The remix is hilarious because G Herbo and Sexyy Red are two of the Michigan rappers most associated with rapping offbeat, and it feels like there's not a single bar of the song rides the beat. The remix came out a couple weeks after the world found out that G Herbo's entire jet-setting lifestyle is made possible with wire fraud and stolen credit card numbers, so it's funny that he's still earnestly bragging about his wealth on here ("really rich, I got 16 different spots"). 

Best Verse: Sexyy Red
Overall Grade: B

"Point Me 2" by FendiDa Rappa featuring Cardi B
This isn't the first Cardi B's been on a drill beat but she really ripped this one, a 24 bar-verse, probably her best feature outside of "Tomorrow 2," she's basically at the Andre 3000 level of staying relevant off a couple hot guest verses per year. Will there ever be another album? Who knows! Is she writing her verses by herself now that Pardison Fontaine isn't on the songwriting credits of her recent stuff? Who knows! 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: A-

Brandy's Ma$e collaboration "Top Of The World" kind of flopped considering that it was her follow-up to "The Boy Is Mine." So I was surprised that Burna Boy sampled it for its latest single, but then I didn't think "He Wasn't Man Enough For Me" was one of Toni Braxton's more fondly remembered singles before Burna Boy sampled it on "Last Last," go figure. 21 Savage feels like an appropriate guest for the remix since he's one of the dullest monotone rap stars of his era just like Ma$e was.  
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C- 

Not much music from the Caribbean has crossed over in the U.S. since Afrobeats sort of supplanted dancehall in American clubs a few years ago, but Byron Messia from Saint Kitts has blown up in the last few months. Burna Boy being on the song's remix sort of confirms that "Talibans" is a fluke and Nigeria is still making more hits than the West Indies, though. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+ 

"Throw It!" is one of the many rap hits in the last few years built on the bed-squeaking loop from Trillville's "Some Cut." But it kinda feels like that's all there is to the song, Big Boss Vette's verse definitely adds some extra flavor that the original was missing. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B

Davido's 2017 single "Fall" was one of the first Afrobeats songs to really take off on American radio, and "Unavailable" is his biggest U.S. streaming hit since "Fall," so it was smart to get a big American star on the remix. Latto doesn't really match the sound of the song, for me, would've made more sense with a singer than a rapper. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+

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