mixtape maestro (2.0)

Though it took a minute to fully swallow the seemingly bizarro reality of Degrassi: The Next Generation‘s “Jimmy Brooks” being heaped with praise as hip hop’s next great thing, after a couple months living with (and soon, obsessing over) Drake‘s mixtape So Far Gone, a 16-track collection of heart-poured, twenty-something introspection set to an amazingly versatile soundtrack that owes as much to slick Southern rap swagger and 808‘s moody digi-soul-pop as it does Hype Machine‘s popular ranking charts (cameos include blogger faves Lil’ Wayne, Lykke Li, Santigold and Peter Bjorn and John), let’s just say the Drake hype bandwagon needed to make room for one more.

This latest helping of Drake-mania sees popular So Far Gone cut “Best I Ever Had” getting a Ted Smooth twist, and while it’s beat-jacking of the naughty Akinyele classic “Put In Your Mouth” never quite fits in comfortably behind Drake’s “shawty” Valentine letter, the remix isn’t a complete throwaway, due in part to a tabloid-baiting guest appearance from Swizz Beatz.

“Wake up in the morning and my baby cooked me breakfast/ Ass naked, nothing on but a necklace,” rhymes Beatz. What’s so spectacular about that, you might ask? Fast forward a bit to when he unleashes this key line: “She gave me a party at the Guggenheim”. That’s right, he’s speaking on current boo Alicia Keys, who earned plenty of front page gossip rag coverage last year from this event (reportedly, it was the place where Alicia first publicly “out”-ed her romantic relationship with the then-still-married Swizz, all while his wife Mashonda was still under the impression that her and her hubby were going to work things out).

DL: “Best I Ever Had (Remix)” (alt)