R. Kelly featuring T-Pain & Keyshia Cole “Number One (Remix)”/ Shakira featuring T-Pain “She-Wolf (Remix)”
Jay-Z tried, but sadly his grumpy old rapper efforts were, it seems, for naught.
As if “D.O.A” never meant anything (which, to be honest, it kinda didn’t about a nanosecond after first hearing it), T-Pain, one of the bigger faces of the “Auto-Tune” movement that’s suffocated the pop, R&B and rap music scenes in recent years, has polished off his BIG ASS CHAIN and begun his march back to ubiquity. Leaks from his forthcoming fourth album RevolveЯ have already started to surface all across the Web, but the tracks that will likely trigger more interest amongst the masses would have to be the couple of high-profile remix gigs found below that he’s smartly lined up to aid in creating buzz for his…guess you could say “comeback”.
The first re-pairs him with R&B kindred spirit of-sorts R. Kelly in a 2.0 take of what’s become Kellz biggest hit in two years, the currently chart-climbing “Number One”. And like their previous collaborations (the remixes to “Same Girl” and “I’m A Flirt”), it’s another memorable joint of the minds between the two modern soul freakazoids.
Featuring Keyshia Cole in place of Keri Hilson and dubbed a “remix for the clubs” despite the fact it bears the same slow groove tempo of the original, the song births plenty of great lyrical snippets to add to both men’s already very lengthy lists of awesomely WTF!! songwriting nuggets, from Pain’s “I’m-a put that BMI all over your ASCAP” to Kelly’s “Baby girl I guarantee once I get up in you/ I will make that pussy speak to me in Auto-Tune” making for what could best be described as robot-icized sex jam heaven!!
DL: “Number One (Remix)” (alt)
For his other remix appearance, T-Pain is inserted into a “re-configured for urban airplay” version of Shakira’s “She-Wolf” that ticks all the necessary boxes to realize it’s goal with it’s disco beat stifling, generic ‘09 hip-pop production overhaul (listening to it, you nearly expect Flo-Rida to pop up with some corny club rap banter at some point).
Unnecessary? Totally, though some slight entertainment value can be found in Mr. Pend-Her-Ass-Down’s aping of Shakira’s vocal melody. But it did get us to thinking of how cool would it have been if he had found a way to bring his boy R. Kelly in here. Having the “R” in R&B spout out some naughty verse about a fanged seductress would have really brought this revamp to the next level.
DL: “She-Wolf (T-Pain Remix)” (alt)
real recognize real