There are many areas in which to give Marshmello praise: his original sound that he pioneered in 2015, his outreach to fans, his incredible marketing across innumerable areas in media. But by and large, and for a long time, his hip hop collaborations have remained the absolute weakest part of his career.
His debut foray into the genre, “Danger” with Migos, is actually pretty good. Even “Project Dreams” with Roddy Ricch is decent. But from there, “Roll The Dice” with Sob RBE, “Light It Up” with Tyga and Chris Brown (beyond the obvious issues with that collaboration), “Been Thru This Before” with Southside, Saint Jhn, and Giggs, and no “Baggin'” with 42 Duggs have all been basic, run of the mill rap beats that add little to Marshmello’s pedigree apart from spreading his name in other genres.
42 Dugg isn’t a small rapper by any means, commanding 6.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify and multiple tracks with millions of plays. “Baggin’,” based on the collaboration, is sure to gain at least a million listens, but the song itself is vapid and honestly pretty bad. The whole song is boasting about money and getting more of it and using women.
Heard I fucked her friend, she keep callin’ me a savage
She gon’ suck ’cause she nasty
Once I fucked her I be laughin’ (Fuck off)
We will never meet again, only thing I eat is tens
Bag, what you doin’? Baggin’, baggin’
For the normally wholesome Marshmello, who has a children’s TV show aimed at 4-6 year old, the song is a far cry from his core brand, not to mention the quality of the song itself. There’s no indication of any Marshmello influence in the song from the production, apart from the ever-present “Mello made it right” ad lib at the beginning. It has some really fat 808s and a quaint piano melody in the back, but it’s hardly a good beat. And for 42 Dugg’s performance, his voice could hardly be called anything but grating.
Marshmello has a new album coming this year, and we’re still excited for it… as long as he steers away from hip hop.
Photo via Rukes.com
