Ace Hood feat. Rick Ross and Lil’ Wayne- “Hustle Hard (Remix)”
From some Ace Hood album that will never come out

Ace Hood is fine here, confident and tenacious. Rozay has proven that he can navigate the negative spaces of Lex Luger’s production better than anyone. But this is really Lex Luger’s tryout for Wayne. He cooks up the same clipped snares and churning, rattled bass that is his signature, and he mixes them this time through a piano pattern that is menacing in its hesitation. Wayne isn’t just sparring with him either. For his part:

1.  He performs the chorus twice, to serve as a warm-up and a cool-down for his verse.
2. Then “I eat these rappers: Anthony Hopkins” happens.
3. “Polo”—>”Ocho”—>”pollo”
4. “Swagger just dumb / Call it Kelly Bundy”
5. “Hit that bitch with that Wayne Train,” which means nothing but sounds emblematic.
6. After adding a note of finality, he blesses us for eight more spontaneous-sounding bars.
7. “Y’all pussy niggas: you feline”

Of all of his post-prison features not named “6’7’,” this is his most grounded and accessible, but it retains the ramshackle, unpredictable artistry that populated his best work previously. There’s a common ground between the dangerously blunted, nearly unlistenable “Can’t Believe It” and the untethered tentativeness of “Welcome to My Hood,” “Green and Yellow,” or—good God—“Bow Chicka Wow Wow (Remix).” This might be it.