Good lord, there were a lot of remixes in the last three months. Here's Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, and the Spotify playlist with all the remixes I've covered in 2023, over a hundred of them. 

I ranted a few months ago about how much I hate "All My Life," and it feels like Durk validated all my criticisms of the song's crossover pandering by doing remixes with an Afrobeats star and a K-Pop group. Burna Boy has a good handle on the song's melody but the Stray Kids remix just sounds ridiculous. 

Best Verse: Burna Boy

Overall Grade: D

I've never heard of BlakeIANA, but apparently she's from St. Louis like Sexyy Red, maybe a slightly better rapper but a lot less personality. Not a huge fan of Big Sexyy but she definitely has a star quality, the song immediately becomes more memorable when she shows up for her quick little 8-bar verse, and she stays on beat better than usual. Should've had RZA on the remix too, though, obviously. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B-

I have a higher opinion of NLE Choppa than most people, he's pretty hit and miss but when he's in his lane he makes pretty enjoyable music. Unfortunately, he just sounds stupid rapping things like "suck it suck it, eat it eat it eat it, chalupa!" on this track. 

Best Verse: Blessd

Overall Grade: F

I don't think I would've guessed that Armani White was from Philadelphia, but he sounds pretty good on this uptempo dance track by a member of the group Philly Goats, and the song is similar to "I Wanna Rock" and "Shake Sumn" but a better song. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

The original "Butterfly Coupe" had Tyga on it so Quavo is easily an improvement. There are a lot of annoying rapper names in this column, but I think Kalan.FrFr has my least favorite rap name out right now. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

I've never been a big fan of Janelle Monae, but I respect the pivot she's made with her music and her image on The Age of Pleasure. She really leaned into making a fun, free-spirited record and made some songs where it would actually make sense to put Latto and Quavo on the remix, but it's still within Monae's wheelhouse. 

Best Verse: Latto

Overall Grade: B

The main thing I remembered about "Cobra" after hearing it for the first time was that it ends with a guitar solo -- I was curious who played it and found that it was Diggy Lessard, son of Dave Matthews Band bassist Stefan Lessard. And then Meg decided to take the rock element further and made a remix with Canadian metalcore band Spiritbox. I rolled my eyes a little at the beginning of the remix, but once it gets going and Spiritbox's lead singer is screaming along with Meg, it's pretty fun. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

A lot of minor hits by regional rappers getting remixed with big name stars in this column, and unfortunately most of them are pretty bad. Not a huge YB fan but he definitely makes the song a lot more listenable. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

"From Tha Back" is an incredibly dumb and repetitive song, it almost sounds like what someone could make doing an insulting parody of modern rap. So I dunno, the guests aren't really any better than what the song deserves, although they do improve it somewhat. 

Best Verse: Waka Flocka Flame

Overall Grade: C

Of the several new rappers I heard for the first time putting this column together, Cincinnati rapper SkyLar Blatt seems like by far the most promising. I actually like her original "Fuck Fame" a little more than the remix, the Lola verse is fine but it already felt like a pretty complete song without her, that beat is nuts. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

In October, Summer Walker celebrated the 5th anniversary of the mixtape that launched her career, Last Day of Summer, with an EP featuring three new remixes of the tape's breakout single. The thing is, the most famous version of "Girls Need Love" was already the first remix with Drake, so this kind of feels like overkill to me, it would've made more sense to remix "Karma" since that just belatedly became a radio hit this year. But I dunno, these remixes are fine, the Monet one was a little disappointing, I thought it'd be the best easily but it's probably the weakest. 

Best Verse: Tyla

Overall Grade: C

I only know who Skilla Baby is and that he's from Detroit because of that dumb new Jack Harlow song, but apparently he did a collab album with Tee Grizzley. Kind of an annoying song to begin with, but the remix is a slight improvement. 

Best Verse: JT

Overall Grade: B-

Never heard of Arkansas rapper MudBaby Ru before this song but it's a pretty impressive track, don't really think it even needed a remix really, or maybe he should've held out for bigger stars. Not a big Nardo Wick fan but he gets a good 21 Savage-style menacing whisper going on here. 

Best Verse: Nardo Wick

Overall Grade: B-

Definitely one of Sexyy Red's better songs and Durk is a great match for it, sounds like he could've been on the original song. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B

"Hell N Back" has been on a pretty long journey as a sleeper hit, British singer Bakar released the song in 2019, it became an alternative/Triple A radio hit in 2020, and in 2023 it got bigger as it appeared in trailers and ads and crossed over to pop radio. I think it's kind of a dinky little indie rock song with horns, and I rolled my eyes at the prospect of Summer Walker being on the song, but this is one of her best vocal performances to date, she surprisingly brought the perfect energy to it. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: A- 

Chris Brown and Ciara kind of parallel careers early as R&B's biggest male and female teen idols at one point, and it was surprising to realize that "How We Roll" is the first song they've ever done together. Decent song but doesn't really live up to its event collaboration status, and putting another mid-2000s superstar on the remix is a good idea but the Wayne verse is nothing special by his standards. The remix has a guitar solo that wasn't on the original, but it doesn't sound like something Wayne's capable of. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: C+

Another extremely stupid song but Sexyy Red yelling "I'm a hornball!" almost makes it worthwhile.  
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+

A much better NLE Choppa verse here than on "Boy Boy." 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

Hitmaka looped up the Michael Wycoff sample from Zhane's "Hey Mr. DJ" for Ne-Yo's latest single, and the Fabolous verse on the remix is even more of a boring radio-R&B-by-numbers move. Fab used to sound so effortless on tracks like this but he's really showing his age now, he's washed. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: D 

The producer tag at the beginning of this is a kid saying "it's the beat for me!" which is just hilarious. Another song with a big obvious sample of an old hit, Ludacris's "Move Bitch." I thought Connie Diiamond was a dude the first time I heard this song, her voice is deeper than I-20's. As much as I think it's impossible to measure up to the Luda original, I think this is a pretty decent song, and the KenTheMan verse is alright. If they had more clout it would've been fun to hear Luda rip this beat again. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B- 

Latto is easily a better rapper than Sexyy Red, but Big Sexyy's verse is just hilarious, she definitely fit the tone of the song better. I'm surprised that Nudy not only didn't rap a new verse for the remix but didn't include his verse from the original, so he's just on the hook for the remix, which is just him making goofy over-the-top sex noises. 

Best Verse: Sexyy Red
Overall Grade: A-

It was only a little over 2 years ago that DaBaby was genuinely one of the most popular rappers in the country (like he actually had more monthly Spotify listeners than Drake for a minute off of that Dua Lipa remix!) before he said that homophobic shit at a Rolling Loud concert and screwed up his own career. DaBaby just kept releasing constantly releasing singles just as he had before, though, and his persistence eventually paid off when "Shake Sumn" caught a little momentum and became a minor hit this year. Once again, a stupid song, but I see why Sexyy Red keeps getting asked to appear on remixes, because she brings a lot of energy and humor to any song she does. 

Best Verse: Sexyy Red

Overall Grade: C

Ross and Meek launched their duo album with a single named after an iconic Lakers duo, both of whom rapped in the '90s. But of course, Kobe is no longer with us, so for the remix they got Shaq to come out of rap retirement for a minute along with current Bucks star Damian Lillard, who's often boasted of being the best rapper in the NBA, which is kind of a hilarious pathetic thing to brag about. Shaq was the only baller-turned-rapper with a platinum album and probably always will be, but he was never a particularly nimble rapper, and he really stumbles through his verse here, so Dame 

Best Verse: Dame D.O.L.L.A.

Overall Grade: C

Kanii is a whiney teen emo rapper from Washington, D.C. who broke into the Hot 100 earlier this year with a terrible TikTok hit called "I Know." His follow-up single "Sins" is a slightly better song, and the remix features sort of an elder statesman of Soundcloud emo rap. Trippie Redd sounds maybe the best he's ever sounded on this, and there's a really cool synth line that comes in during his verse that isn't on the original "Sins," this remix really came out of nowhere being surprisingly great. This column has included the artists Kaliii, Connie Diiamond and Kanii, and Doechii and Toosii also broke through this year, so the double/triple i has become this weirdly ubiquitous naming convention in rap/R&B this year. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B+

SZA released a video for "Snooze" in which she had several love interests played by a couple actors and Justin Bieber and Benny Blanco, Variety reported that Bieber would be on a remix of the song, and Punch from TDE correcting them that it wouldn't be a remix, with it eventually being revealed as an acoustic version. But it's still a different version with a big name guest star, so I'm going to consider it a remix for the purposes of this column. It sounds pretty pleasant, it's a good song for the acoustic treatment, and Bieber sounds slightly less ridiculous than he would on the original track. But it's got the same lyrics as the original, and Bieber sings lead on the second verse ("in the droptop ride I feel like Scarface/ like that white bitch with the bob, I'll be your main one"), it's hilarious, I don't know why they thought that was a good idea. I also don't know why Bieber has a writing credit on this version, I don't know if he played the guitar or arranged it but it's still very much the same song. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B- 

It was a bit of a viral moment a few weeks ago when Gunna did one of his first post-jail concerts and did a song with Nigerian gospel singer Victor Thompson, and everyone was kind of excited that Gunna did an Afrobeats song and it actually sounded pretty good, kinda singing more than he has in the past. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B

Two of my favorite rising artists of 2023 that I didn't expect to hear on a song together but it works, "Tummy Hurts" has a silly title but it's one of the best songs on Rapp's album, and probably the one that makes the most sense with an R&B singer on it. The only bad thing about the remix is that Jones's verse replaces one of Rapp's best verses on the album. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

Zoe Osama is an L.A. rapper who got two west coast legends on the remix to his breakthrough single. I have mixed feelings about the song (Zoe Osama says "nut" and "semen" in the chorus, which just feels like too much ejaculate talk for a hook), and Snoop's verse always has a pretty ridiculous line: "She told me that she's my biggest fan so I put my dick in her biggest hand." Her hands are different sizes? Like a hermit crab?" The last verse is by MoneySign Suede, a California rapper who was stabbed to death in prison in April. "Underrated" was first released back in 2021 so maybe he recorded his verse for this song back before he was locked up, I don't know. 

Best Verse: E-40
Overall Grade: B

A couple days before before this came out on Friday, Tyla tweeted a teaser without saying who the guest on the remix would be. And I feel like that backfired because everybody figured out who they wanted on the remix and also braced themselves to be disappointed with who she chose (the popular theory was Chris Brown, who she's toured with). And there was a collective groan when it was revealed to be Travis Scott. Listen, though, I never want to give Travis Scott credit for anything, but he was better than I expected on this, he should do more songs at a faster tempo like this because it was a nice flow. The weird thing they do with the hook after his verse doesn't really work, though, and I have no desire to hear this on the radio instead of the original. 

Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B-

Wale feels like a very natural fit for this song, he does what needs to be done, it's not good exactly, but it's that familiar Wale radio song flow. Didn't really like Enny's verse, though. 

Best Verse: Wale

Overall Grade: C

Flyana Boss have apparently been signed to Atlantic since 2021, but nobody ever really heard of the L.A. duo until this past summer when they started making TikToks running through Disney World and other public places rapping a few bars of "You Wish." The viral part of "You Wish" ("Hello, Christ? I'm 'bout to sin again") is by far my least favorite part of the song, but the rest of it is pretty good. I love hearing Missy flex being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on record for the first time. 
Best Verse: Missy Elliott
Overall Grade: B

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