Chris Brown ft. Busta Rhymes, Twista, Lil Wayne - "Look At Me Now"

I guess that if you pay the money for rights to a given rap beat, it's only fair that you get listed as the main artist on the track. But that doesn't change the fact that Chris Brown is so hilariously out of place on "his" latest single "Look At Me Now", which "features" Busta Rhymes, Twista, and Lil Wayne. The beat, a minimalist Neptunes-esque stomper by Afrojack and Diplo, is high-quality enough that Brown's limp contribution, a complete nothing of an verse and a half-hearted attempt at double time that almost immediately falls apart (not to mention an irritating intro), doesn't sink the entire enterprise. Instead, Busta Rhymes takes over (starting off with a hilariously condescending lecture to Brown) and kicks off one of the most solid fast-rap showcases in years. Busta takes the crown for endurance here, stretching out a single breath into way many more bars of jackhammer-flow rap than you'd think was possible. Twista, on the other hand, wins for agility, with his hairpin transitions from 0 to 60 in the speed of his flow. And while Weezy may be in the wrong weight class against these double-time heavyweights, his verse contains plenty of typically Wayne oddities (there's a pretty disarming pleasantness to a diss like "n***** is sweet as pumpkin pie").

Thankfully, internet justice has been bestowed upon the track with noble remixers stepping in to lop off the Brown verse entirely (although the only version I could find is a clean edit, unfortunately). A more ambitious remix comes from Israeli DJ Sabbo, who seizes upon the rhythmic clatter of the voices in the original and reproduces the effect with a skittering array of handclaps and synthetic snares, ending up with one of the best Baltimore-club-esque tracks I've heard in a while. In any case, Chris Brown deserves thanks, if not for his talent then for his advocacy, since his star profile helped the plenty-weird-on-its-own original sneak into the Billboard Top 20 somehow. I would like to see more acts signing up as collaborators on awesome material that is far beyond their level of competence - I think Katy Perry could probably do wonders with Melt Banana.

Chris Brown - "Look at Me Now (ft. Busta Rhymes, Twista, Lil Wayne)"


Chris Brown - "Look at Me Now (no Chris Brown edit)"

Chris Brown - "Look at Me Now (Sabbo Remix)"
Chris Brown ft Lil Wayne and Busta-Look At Me Now (Sabbo Remix) by Sabbo