Tracks
Bow Wow f/ Jermaine Dupri: "Rock The Mic"
(2009)
By Clayton Purdom | 13 February 2009
I don’t want to be saying this. Know that in advance. But it would be irresponsible for me to deny that “Rock The Mic” might be the first big rap banger of 2009. Formal percussion is treated as a necessary evil, flow the all-encompassing lure, sweet nocturnal synths sighing nearby. Ghostwritten? Probably—it’s brain-busting to imagine Jermaine Dupri and Bow Wow sitting in the studio penning these wry mic tosses and asides—but since when has that stopped a track from being hot, right. Also: who even thought of these two as such an inseperable pair that they deserve a posse track of this devotion? Also: Bow Wow is the glassy-eyed antithesis of charisma, and Jay D brought us Da Brat, among others. But: this! The verses are a gorgeous marriage of tempo and spare drum fill, their give and take the sweet cushion until that sublimely silly hook: “Walk just alike / Talk just alike / Same damn swagger when we” (scratch) “rock up on the mic.” JD may be coming to the “big black glasses” game about 18 months late, but the black-lit video exudes the same timeless cool as the track itself. This, in short, is what happens when all of the elements of a pop track are arranged in geometric perfection like stars on a cloudless night. Try not to hold against it that two of those stars are, um, Jermaine Dupri and the star of Like Mike. January down, here’s the one to beat.