Critical reception
Marc Hogan of Spin called the song "a welcome return from a late great,overseen with obvious ... devotion" from Drake,who "mostly manages to stay out of the way on this one,confidently embodying the character of Aaliyah's repressed boyfriend without stifling the track with too much reverence." [5] Bruna Nessif of E! Online felt that "it's hard not to feel some goosebumps rise at the first sound of Aaliyah's soft voice,but quickly,listeners can find themselves taken by the single and moving their head to the smooth beat". [7] MTV's Nadeska Alexis commented that Shebib's production "complements Aaliyah's vocals nicely on the track." [8] Gerrick D. Kennedy of the Los Angeles Times felt that "Drake still deserves to be applauded for the track",despite his "usual struggling-with-fame-pathos" rap verse and its diverse reception with fans of Aaliyah,writing that "rarely do artists get the chance to revive their inspirations,certainly not as deftly as he's done with the track. [6]
By contrast,Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone panned Drake's rap as a "desecration" and "desultory boasting,pointless 'wass ups,' slapped on like gaudy graffiti tags." He gave the song three-and-a-half out of five stars and asserted that,without his contribution,it would be "an engrossing record,with eerily stark production from Noah '40' Shebib:a great fit,and a worthy tribute,to R&B's most avant-garde diva." [9] Robbie Daw of Idolator criticized his rap as "ill-advised" and "ho-hum",and stated,"this is not the 'tribute' we would have liked to hear." [10]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
