Jay-Z feat. Drake - Off That (Produced by Timbaland)
After listening to this song for the past hour, I’m still unsure how I feel about it. The beat sounds like a better version of ‘The Bounce’, and the lyrics are nothing if not solid. (And, though the O’Reilly/Limbaugh jab seems misplaced, I guess it works into his vision of how - when it comes to closemindedness - ‘we off that’.) Jay’s flow is different - fitting for a song that’s all about chasing freshness - except that it sounds forced, unnatural, like an old dog learning a new trick. Actually, more than anything, it sounds like an old dog chasing Billboard charts: why else throw Drake on the hook? And yet, I can’t stop listening.
So, I completely disagree with what Jeff aka Clark Kentington aka Eric’s Brother has to say about this song sounding contrived.
First, the flow: The first verse is probably the most different from Hovie’s past flows, but I don’t think that it doesn’t work. The second verse is pretty much inline with what Jay did on ‘D.O.A’ (especially the way he works in the “oh”), and in other ways, ‘Jockin Jay-Z’ or the ‘American Boy (remix)’. Similarly, the third verse has got the same sped up but not that fast feel as ‘Ain’t I’ and ‘Laugh At’em (Give It To Me remix)”. Lyrically, it’s the same type of (great) bragging stuff that he’s been doing forever.
As far as putting Drake on the hook, I don’t know why Degrassi’s Jimmy is on this song either, but Jeff is insane if he thinks that adding Drake gives Jay-Z any sort of Billboard traction. Jay doesn’t really need that help even, as ‘Run This Town’ is number 3 on this week’s Hot 100 (up from 66 last week), whereas Drake peaked at 2 with ‘Best I Ever Had’ (mostly because of its delayed iTunes release) and none of the other Drake, or Drake featured, singles have sniffed any other sort of commercial or “Billboard” success*. Jeff is just caught in the position of overvaluing what rap blog buzz means to mainstream success— which is not that much, ask Slaughter House**.
If Jay was just going for mainstream appeal, he probably could have gotten Justin Timberlake to do the hook (don’t forget that this is Timbaland produced) and made a much bigger pop culture splash. As is, this song works as a much better than average album cut, not sure if I feel it as a radio single, but I’ve definitely listened to it about thirty times already.
*See: Jamie Foxx’s ‘Digital Girl’, Young Money’s ‘Every Girl’, Mary J. Blige’s most recent single
**Yeah, 99.9% of America doesn’t know who this even is. I mean, even when you google them, they don’t show up on the first page aside from a Joe Budden YouTube video.
