So Sick
Natasha's spirited "Hey Hey Hey" introduced us to her breathy, nimble falsetto, a midpoint between Ciara's wafting alto and Amerie's piercing delivery. "So Sick", her second single, bounces again from voice to voice, emotion to emotion, from the verses' piping ennui to the downtown, seen-it-all sass of the chorus and the maudlin glaze of the bridge. More like spectators than suitors, Clipse simply take it all in.
A drum machine patters along briskly before hardening into a bassline. "When you talk love," Malice warns on the first verse, "that's when I set you free." But Natasha, absorbed by self-regard ("You look so sick 'cause I'm lookin' so fit") and payback jabs ("You must be sick 'cause you didn't sign me"), brushes off the Thornton Brothers' bravado. Not even Pusha's blissfully abstract rhymes about pre-schoolers, hula-hoopers, and state troopers diverts her. Too busy preening, Natasha never engages the rap duo-- she's in her own world, and it's stark there, slipping above minimalism only for the chorus and the rapturous, Rhodes-spangled bridge. A little vulnerability could have brightened everything.
A drum machine patters along briskly before hardening into a bassline. "When you talk love," Malice warns on the first verse, "that's when I set you free." But Natasha, absorbed by self-regard ("You look so sick 'cause I'm lookin' so fit") and payback jabs ("You must be sick 'cause you didn't sign me"), brushes off the Thornton Brothers' bravado. Not even Pusha's blissfully abstract rhymes about pre-schoolers, hula-hoopers, and state troopers diverts her. Too busy preening, Natasha never engages the rap duo-- she's in her own world, and it's stark there, slipping above minimalism only for the chorus and the rapturous, Rhodes-spangled bridge. A little vulnerability could have brightened everything.