Every season produces at least one hip hop banger capable of bringing out everyone’s inner ratchet to the forefront, and this past winter that record has been Que‘s “OG Bobby Johnson”, a sonic blitzkrieg of rat-a-tat drums, lyrical hood menace, scary movie keyboard loops and a brain-sticking hook appeal that seemed to have every rapper out drowning the World Wide Web with their own freestyle riff on the anthem.
While it would have made sense for a mega-mix remix stitching together the best moments of the many “OG Bobby Johnson”‘s floating out there to become a thing, Que has gone one better by cooking up an all-original remix, rounding up sixteens from the likes of Snoop, A$AP Ferg and Pusha T.
What results though is proof of how important Que was in making the original such a favorite. True, producer Bobby Johnson‘s street corner doomsday swirl was the star of the show, but Que’s tooth-licking stop-start flow was just as essential, his rugged tone within the track’s blistering crackle helping push “Johnson” as an addicting assault of dot-dot-dash staccato precision. So while it’s nice to hear Snoop travel back to his earlier, “hood”-er days or Pusha do what he does best, grimacing through the soundscape with more of his charismatic street tales, none manage to match the hungry, up-and-coming ferociousness of Que, making this one of the rare all-star posse cut revisions to land a bit unnecessary.
