Ta-Nehisi's absolutely right to point out the absurd tightness of "Millionaire," the Kelis-Andre 3000 track off the former's album "Tasty." I mean, come on people. Wow:
Verses like this demonstrate why I wish Andre would keep rapping forever:
Where there is cheese there are rats,
Wherever there are rats there are cats,
Wherever there are cats there are dogs.
If you got the dogs you got bitches.
Bitches always out to put their paws on your riches.
If you got riches, you got glitches.
If you got glitches in your life computer turn it off and then reboot 'er.
Now you back on.
It's very syncopated, but delivered smoothly. I don't adore the implication that "bitches" are always going for a man's money, but the whole thing has a "As I Was Going to St. Ives" ("Kits, cats, sacks, wives") vibe to it that I really like. I continually struggle to describe what I think makes flow near-perfect, but when I think about how herky-jerky Lil' Wayne's delivery would be on this, it makes me cringe. Eminem probably does the delivery of echoy lines a bit better than Andre, but Andre's up there. I'm so absurdly envious of that skill set that I have a hard time understanding how Andre could even consider walking away from it to pursue other things, but I do recognize that's just me projecting, and of course he has every right in the world to pursue new artistic horizons. But one reason I'm so hungry for the release of Big Boi's solo album, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty is that I want to hear Andre rapping while I still can. Each verse seems increasingly precious with the risk there won't be more of them.