http://www.zshare.net/audio/17485064653c6fd4/
New Music: T.I. [ft. Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne]: "Swagger Like Us" [Stream]
Last year, M.I.A.'s summery shoot-em-up "Paper Planes" emerged as the kind of track that pop and underground music fans of all stripes could rally behind. The remix with Bun B and Rich Boy took the Kala cut's bass-buzzing, register-ringing Robin Hood stance deeper into outlaw territory-- the mean streets and Sherwood Forest-- correctly noted that poverty was a condition one is born into rather than something one brings on himself, and wound up as our #4 track of 2007. In recent weeks, the use of "Paper Planes" in the trailer for Seth Rogen stoner action-comedy Pineapple Express has propelled the track as high as #5 in the Hot 100. In the process, Clap Clap blogger Mike Barthel suggests, the movie ad brings Kala's translation of drug-dealing hustle into third-world hustle back home as a critique of white American gangstaism. A thousand miles an hour, indeed.
New West-produced T.I. track "Swagger Like Us", which samples a bit of the Clash-sampling "Paper Planes", reclaims the song for hip-hop. It's basically a Who's Who of critically acclaimed, top-selling rappers, with Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Lil Wayne all joining T.I. as M.I.A.'s voice repeats, "No one on the corner has swagger like us." But it's also one of the song's least inventive uses yet, blasting off with spaceship-like sound effects even as West and Wayne run T-Pain Auto-Tune into the ground. "I'm Christopher Columbus/ Y'all just pilgrims," West announces. Um, thanks? On West's blog, he calls this "the rap Olympic team," but the individual performances don't come together well enough to garner this team the gold. (via HipHopDX)
Stream:> T.I. [ft. Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Lil Wayne]: "Swagger Like Us"
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