Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
Beyonce f/ Jay Z :: "Deja Vu"From B'Day (Sony; 2006)
Those familiar with the rap critic blogosphere will recognize this as a painful exercise in not naming names.
Should we reward “Deja Vu” for being precisely what we expect it to be, for explicitly telling us that we should expect it to be, for being self-defeatingly self-fulfilling… yet forthright? Its utter lack of guile is a bit disarming. I mean, déjà vu? And the track’s like, “Yeah, of course, déjà vu.” Do we say, “Cool”? Or do we say, “Oh”? Or do we just listen to “Crazy in Love” instead? When the rehash is this inferior, I at least know that I’m not picking option one.
Yes, it’s unnervingly hot the way Beyonce announces the beat’s components like she’s summoning mechs or channeling Timberlake. C’mon, though, Kelis more prominently pimps the 808 in the chorus to “Bossy.” Never mind that Rodney Jerkins’ canned hat and clap pales in the shadow of its predecessor’s Rich Harrison break-bap. Back then Jay’s verse dropped in like an atom bomb; “Deja Vu” is too eager, too “Hey, everybody, Jay-Z’s on this fucking one, too!” He’s panting “uh” left and right before B can even get to his name on the roll call. And then: retired Hov disregarding song content to talk about how he was, is, retroactively and forever shall be the motherfuckin’ greatest was charming on “Crazy in Love” and the remix of “Diamonds” and the other dozen times he did it, but now it’s edging towards parody. In the past it was vindicated by indelible lines (“my texturrr is the best furrr”). Here he spells a lot and makes indefensible scheme choices, like “BOUNCE flow.” Bounce flow, people. Beyonce pushes her voice harder than ever after Jay’s slouch, no doubt trying to salvage the situation, but her effort reeks of too much, too late. Lacking melody’s persuasion, the chorus is all insistence.
It’s admirable, this track’s clenched willfulness to be our summer jam, to please us, get us all together on its steez, cater 2 us, but I can’t admire the means. “Deja Vu” tries to be our summer jam the way a Michael Bay shit tries to be our summer jam: by being formulaic to the point of batting below popular convention, by being boorishly manipulative, by being about as forced as forced can be. The big difference is that Michael Bay is Satan. We like Beyonce, we like the bass line, Hov’s the only rapper who can do a whole album with R. Kelly and still be forgiven, and sometimes that’s all it takes when we’re very hungry and a little hopeless. Maybe we can accept “Deja Vu,” it’s just that déjà vu’s not the thing we need.
Chet Betz :: 24 June 2006 |
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