Cool Song: Papoose feat. Lil Wayne “Thought I Was Gonna Stop”

I’ve lost track of the Papoose discourse, and Lil Wayne has too many collaborations to keep up with, so I don’t know what I was expecting to hear when I pressed play on their collab “Thought I Was Gonna Stop,” but it wasn’t… this.

Which is all to say I wasn’t expecting anything bad — just maybe not something quite this good. Over a deceptively-simple flip of legendary South African MC Doc Shebeleza “Gets Getsa,” the two MCs go in for just under two minutes, each one providing a clear display of their microphone mastery.

“While ya’ll was on Clubhouse, I was in the dugout, waiting to get up to bat and knock a home run out,” Papoose raps, before going completely bonkers while riding the subtle bass note over the drum track. Then Wayne: “While ya’ll been on TikTok, I been on Big, Pac/ big glock, ’cause Alfred Hitchcock get your Kid, Rocked.”

Clearly, these two have a bit of a disdain for contemporary social media platforms and the way they’ve been prioritized by up and coming rappers — if not the entire music industry — at the expense of artist’s developing their actual skills. More time in the booth, less time on the phone, and maybe something like this is what you come back with.

The video, directed by WillC and Tana, matches the song’s energy, all frenetic jump cuts and graphic splashes that accentuate the rhymes as they’re unspooled. I especially like the end, when the camera keeps rolling and the dancers let loose, doing the original Harlem Shake.

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