A Decade on Shuffle, Part 6
Featuring a perfect sax sample, DJ Khaled in minor key, and three other songs.
It took me a while to complete this entry. The writing was tedious, and something felt off. Don’t get me wrong, I love each one of the five songs I write about here, but the selection doesn’t include the highest of highs and the odd turns I had previously encountered as I revisit my hundred favorite songs of the last decade.
The entire point of this series, named A Decade on Shuffle, is to review these personal gems, well, on shuffle. In general, I go to my YouTube playlist, the only place where (almost) all songs are properly listed, and hit the Shuffle button. This time though, I got distracted, because the five selected songs are not random at all but presented in their original order. I only found out when I was wrapping things up (I blame the YouTube design team).
I think I know why that selection feels a little mundane: all songs were initially located in a zone of the playlist between track 20 and track 30. Meaning: songs that I wouldn’t use for the grand opening (01-10), nor the very important midway point (45-55), neither the closing firework (90-100). From track 20 to 30, the songs are building blocks for other masterworks. Still, I still stand by each of one of them. These songs are bursts of enthusiasm that are the fabric of music memories, even when they don’t have the lasting impact of life-changing classics.
20.
DJ Khaled ft. Drake, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne - I’m On One (2010)
Long before he transformed into a motivational guru and a walking meme, DJ Khaled was already a tireless hip-hop promoter looking for the winning formula. Connecting stars and up-and-comers, the Miami DJ specialized in too-big-to-fail tentpole rap—his mark would be to punctuate every song, presumably a hit, by uttering two words: “Another one”. At its most predictable, a DJ Khaled song could be a vacuous big name collaboration. But on a good day, the kind of which Khaled would bless the sky for, it would offer a compelling snapshot of rap’s most effective chemistries. That’s “I’m On One”. A screw-everything anthem powered by a novelty catchphrase, the song featured some of the most reliable names in Khaled’s industry rolodex. The triumvirate of Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne guaranteed a mix of post-adolescent bravado (that’s Drake), capitalist wisdom (Lil Wayne: “Too much money ain’t enough money”) and accidental creepiness (see: Rick Ross verse). In a shrewd move, Khaled shied away from his maximalist instincts to tap Canadian producers T-Minus and Noah “40” Shebib, architects of Drake’s brooding sound (see song #05). Their signature style, equally mournful and epic, thickened the air with electricity—an effect so vivid, the video had to open on a slow-motion shot of a somber Khaled holding an umbrella under a night storm. In hindsight, “I’m On One” wasn’t really top-tier for any party involved, but at the time, it presented an intriguing update to DJ Khaled’s religion-brand of bombast, even if the song remained a pure product of his assembly line: self-important, easily forgettable, but enjoyable as long as it lasts.
21.
Big Boi ft. Sam Chris - The Train Pt. 2 (Sir Lucious Left Foot Saves The Day) (2010)
In 2021, the tastemakers at Pitchfork selected the first solo venture of Big Boi, the more grounded half of OutKast, as one of nineteen albums deserving a critical revision. With a caveat: his would be one of five albums whose original ratings were to be lowered (from 9.2 to 7.7, to be exact). I’m not one to knock on Pitchfork’s decimal nitpicking—I actually love it—and the correction was understandable: Sir Lucious Left Foot… was a great rap album, but it could have used some editing, and after a near-perfect run alongside Andre 3000 in OutKast, Big Boi simply couldn’t deliver the ever-elusive OutKast reunion the world was still hoping for. Yet, the judgment was harsh, almost fickle, given how satisfying Sir Lucious… really was. The bulk of the album was titanium solid, as Big Boi hopped across expansive sonic ideas—earth-rattling basses, marching band horns and lush soul samples—without ever losing the otherworldliness that came to define OutKast in Atlanta’s hip-hop family tree. Big Boi also reminded any doubter that, as low-key as he may appear in the presence of the more eccentric Andre, he had always been a rap beast. A standout track among many, including the ones left on the cutting floor, “The Train Pt. 2” sounded like G-Funk from deep space, a soothing signal in the album’s final minutes. Big Boi took on a high-pitched, reflective tone, but he still corrected poseurs, continuing OutKast’s grand tradition of elevated rap that felt like meditation in a Cadillac.
23.
Cozz - Knock Tha Hustle (2014)
“Love Away” is a slick and synth-heavy composition from Polish smooth jazz musician Michal Urbaniak. It was released in 2006 as part of an album called Sax Love, but the title alone indicates that it could as well been teleported straight from 1986. Thanks to Urbaniak’s saxophone, the song felt like the soundtrack of a long-lost erotic thriller, or a fantasized replica of the Miami skyline. As it turned out, “Love Away” also worked like a charm to support the ambitions of an up-and-coming rapper making his entrance in 2014. In “Knock Tha Hustle”, a calling card from Nigerian-American rapper Cozz, producer Trauma One sped up Michal Urbaniak’s sax, added the classic “Synthetic Substitution” breakbeat, and produced a no-frill boom-bap track that contained an inner pain behind its familiar, head-nodding groove. Cozz seized the moment with hunger and intent. What made his performance compelling was not just the rhyme schemes and the cheese analogies—though he deserves praises for making the word “parmesan” rhyme with “my heart is strong”—but the angered tension that boiled under them. At the time, Cozz was already signed on J Cole’s Dreamville Records, but he still sounded like the next bar could change his life, and delivered a timeless underdog anthem.
25.
Cyril Mokaiesh - Du Rouge et des passions (2011)
Judging by his debut single “Communiste”, it was hard to tell if French singer Cyril Mokaiesh was a new mainstream star or a glitch in the matrix. Mokaiesh himself seemed amused by the ambiguity of the song, which promised doom to capitalism but ended in playful self-deprecation. Bravely signed by a major label in times of pre-streaming turmoil, Mokaiesh looked like a sure shot: a good-looking romantic who could deliver protest anthems and sweeping hooks. Yet the singer-songwriter never really escaped the orbit of public radio, and felt more comfortable celebrating the unsung heroes of chanson française than chasing the lights. “Du Rouge et des passions”, off the album of the same name, displayed what would become a hallmark of his style: non-sequitur images that frequently plunges into abstraction, and an endless supply of lyricism. In some remote universe that exists only in my head, Mokaiesh is French chanson’s ultimate idol, but his real-life journey as an artisan, full of unpredictable gestures and stellar collaborations, still made him one of the genre’s most accomplished, if slept-on modern auteurs.
26.
Sevdaliza - Sirens Of The Caspian (2015)
“Sirens Of The Caspian”, one of the early singles from Iranian-Dutch singer-songwriter Sevdaliza, was very much a song of its time. It was a Soundcloud hit back when Soundcloud was a launching pad for future stars like Travis Scott and Post Malone. It featured a timely nod to Drake, gold grills, drugged-out artwork, and a riotous climax typical of trap music, the defining sound of the mid-2010s (one snare drum was borrowed to Chicago producer Young Chop, a modern forefather of the genre). In the intro, the reference to the classic monologue from La Haine was the kind of artful touch that a less subtle artist could have ruined when trying to telegraph superior taste. But the song was much greater than the sum of its parts, and radiated with an unsettling aura, like these titular sirens circling the “sailor boy” in Sevdaliza’s sparse poem. A towering presence, the artist looked and sounded like nobody else, a fully-formed enigma summoned into existence by some invisible force. She never really exploded into a commercial giant, but the sense of vertigo she introduced with that one song may still be haunting her more popular contemporaries.
In the previous entry, I wrote about Yelawolf, How to Dress Well, Flynt, Sade and Alex Beaupain. Check out the full playlist on Tidal and Spotify.