Single Review: T.I – ‘No Mediocre’ (feat. Iggy Azalea)
2 min read
Rapper T.I has been doing his rounds over the last year or so; featuring on Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, GaGa’s Jewels n’ Drugs and Tik Tik Boom by pop princess Britney Spears. In the wake of his ninth album release, Paperwork: The Motion Picture, T.I released About The Money as its leading single and previously released No Mediocre featuring the ‘hot right now’ Iggy Azalea.
Well, T.I did a considerable job cleaning up his act to make No Mediocre releasable; the radio edit replaces as much explicit content as possible with more civilised words and it is clear that the concept of the song is that the rapper doesn’t go to bed with no mediocre woman. The hook is catchy and does its job, so there’s a plus, and the second plus would be Iggy Azalea’s verse as she rapped her heart out and aced it. It’s not the most memorable of songs really and it would have a problem receiving tonnes of airplay because of its content, but T.I and Iggy like it, so who cares?
I’m sure that No Mediocre will be a hit with the hip hop and urban communities, it has a good beat going for it and T.I fans will proudly bust out the lyrics as if they shared the same standards; but as a single, the song just doesn’t cut it. The radio version was edited as friendly as possible, but you can only do so much with a track intended to be sexually explicit to the point that you roll your eyes when you read the original lyrics. As collaborators, the two rappers were compatible and could easily work together again with success, but hopefully for a track more meaningful.
