Kevin Gates: "Jam" [ft. Trey Songz, Ty Dolla $ign, and Jamie Foxx]

It’s February, and Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. For most couples, that means frantically trying to construct a playlist of Jamie Foxx videos on YouTube. Well, worry no more—Kevin Gates has you covered. “Jam,” a bonus track from the Baton Rouge rapper’s just-released Islah, is set in motion by Foxx’s half-smirking, half-all-too-real opening skit, lifted from a 2002 comedy special. The conceit isn’t unlike his turn on Kanye West’s “Slow Jamz”: crooning about crooning, sultry singing about the great love songs. Foxx tells you to take the phone and “hold it up to the speakers and you let Luther do your talking for you.”

Of course, this is Gates, so instead of “If Only for One Night” we get, “Spit all in between both cheeks/ Now I spread ‘em.” Where the rest of Islah is completely devoid of features, Gates and Foxx are joined here by Trey Songz and Ty Dolla $ign in a bout of Atlantic Records Matchmaker. The “4:30 a.m.” star writes about sex with the same unsettled specificity he gives to murder scenes and trap houses, to the point where we all learn a bit too much about his tongue strategies. But for the most part, it’s too smooth to matter.

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