A visionary weirdo from Atlanta, two drill pioneers from Chicago, and an OG from Long Beach enter the studio together. It’s anyone’s guess what a collaboration between the four would sound like– all have bangers, ballads, and love songs to their names– but on “Get High,” we get our answer in the form of an immaculate smoking track.
Producer Young Chop laces the three vocalists with something miles removed from the Chief Keef records that made him famous, a plaintive, piano-led course in subtlety that recalls London on da Track or, ironically, newer Chief Keef production jobs. It’s a lush, but uncrowded canvas for Thug, Snoop, and Durk to populate with their inventive vocals.
Thugger covers the track’s first half on his own, slipping back and forth between a blunted croon, conversational tones, piercing falsetto, and a yarling baritone like they’re complementary dishes in a smorgasbord. It’d be easy to dismiss a lesser rapper’s attempt at such chameleonic delivery as style-over-substance, but with bars that are just as inventive (“She got a cameltoe, I call her Marlboro”), Thug clearly takes the full package into consideration.
Durk’s expert grip on melody anchors the song’s back end, but in between, it’s Snoop who steals the show. Calling his car a “Snoop DeVille,” listing off weed strains, name-dropping Brazilian city Florianopolis, and sealing it all off with an alliterative, tattoo-ready slogan, “Power preaches patience,” the Doggfather drops knowledge while staying light on his feet, keeping his appearance just as quicksilver as his nephew Young Thug.
“Get High” is the type of track that renders every generational (Yachty-Vs.-Budden) or regional (East-Vs.-West) rap debate moot. Listen to this track enough and you’ll be ready to write the world’s hundredth 5,000 word “Why the Internet is Rap’s Great Equalizer” thinkpiece—but please don’t. Instead, hole up with Thug and Snoop’s respective new albums this weekend and take Snoop’s advice on the “Get High” intro: “Put some of that real sticky-icky-icky in the motherfuckin' air… But in a Backwood, you dig?”
