T.I. & Jay-Z f/ Lil' Wayne & Kanye West: "Swagger Like Us"

Let me tame my embarrassingly intense erection just long enough to invoke this with the amount of emphasis it demands: whoa. I could rave like some lunatic and throw a thesaurus at this behemoth, and that would be cool and all, but this merits a more explicit explanation of its veracious fortitude, so I offer a narrative that cannot serve as a satisfying summation of the unbridled glee such a track provides. Insert squeals of delight wherever you wish.

And so we begin: the best utilization of M.I.A. ever—and I’m including M.I.A’s entire discography in there—comes chirping like some effortlessly intimidating war cry, then fuzzy electronic accents building to a cascading refrain of squealing synths. Anchored by a phenomenally smooth, whispering drum pattern, Kanye’s best beat since “Down And Out” plods along with an unnerving ease, hits alternating like the steps of a jungle cat. Then: “Mister West is in the buildin’ / Swagger on a hundred, thousand, trillion” followed by cartoonish punchlines and gratuitous boasting, delivered in autotune. The only disappointing aspect of this is ‘Ye didn’t think to insert a line about being a robot. We also get Jigga’s explanation of his clothing choices (“can’t wear skinny jeans ‘cause my nuts don’t fit”) and we know he’s on his game because he actually pronounces “nuts” “nots“ to make it fit into the rhyme scheme. Weezy enters on autopilot, leaning solely on charisma (“No one on the corner has swagger like moi / Chuch!”) and builds to multisyllabics, jewelry jokes, and death threats. All of this is great fun.

Then T.I. knocks everyone over with a heavy dose of breathless brilliance, possibly the best verse of his career, wrapping up a ridiculously dense verse with braggadocio-as-edict: “Gangster shit hereditary / Got it from my dad / Flow colder than February with extraordinary swag.” And jaws hit the floor, college coeds throw panties, and on and on, but gushing aside, a track like this is so supremely satisfying in that it’s something of a Rushmore of commercial hip hop performing at a collective pinnacle. The gargantuan names attached to the track are as good as that little advertisement in your head thinks they’re going to be when you read them. And it’s rare not to be at least somewhat disappointed by a meeting of musical titans (Pussy Cats [1974], anyone?). So, “Swagger Like Us”: way to really not fuck this one up, guys.