Post passed me by in the years that he was coming up, so my first exposure to him was “Congratulations” on the radio. That song says everything obvious about itself before you can; I wanted to say it was self-congratulatory, but the song is already named “Congratulations.” I wanted to call it an “I made it” anthem, but Post spends a good 20% of the song saying the words “I made it.” The song seemed predestined for success with a honeyed chorus so saturated in vocal overdubs that Post probably has diabetes after recording it, a guest verse from Quavo, the most visible guest rapper of 2017, and a beautiful beat from Metro Boomin, who is in the middle of a white-hot production streak. A song about success that would never allow itself to not be successful. It's tautological.
Hearing “Congratulations” as my first Post Malone song made me wonder what he was building this legacy of struggle on. All I had to do was rewind back two years to hear his debut single, “White Iverson,” which, for the people paying attention (not me) put him on the map. The phrase I saw most attached to “White Iverson” was “viral hit,” though. Which… I don't think that's a term most people use anymore? Viral, for real? Is it 2007? This isn't “Chocolate Rain.” It's clear that when “White Iverson” came out in 2015 that people listened to Post Malone and saw a white goober from the Texas suburbs making disposable music. They were right about Post but wrong about the music.
So when I heard “White Iverson” in like September 2017 it was as a prelude to an explosively successful career and not a goofy one-off like it was in February 2015. And I loved it.
I can take or leave most of Post Malone's other songs but “White Iverson” is a jam. And people agree with me, because a few nights ago I typed in “white iverson” to listen to the song again on Apple Music and found 30 different versions of the song – musicians, all of them young and unknown, paying tribute to the song in various ways. It's nearly a folk standard now.
Why not listen to all these different takes on the song, and see how it's disseminated into the culture? It's 2018, after all. We're taking Post Malone seriously now. And if you want to take him seriously with me, I made a playlist of the covers you can listen along to.
Post Malone:
So what makes “White Iverson” work?
Well, in the first place, it has a great cloud rap beat. The buoyant synthesizer bed interplays with a sad, stately piano figure on top of coiled trap drums. If you know my musical loves, you know I'll stan for anything that sounds like Main Attrakionz could go in over it.
But Post deserves a lot of credit too. He curls and slurs his syllables such that they wash into each other. The secret of the chorus is how he mashes his words: “That's my shaw / That's my shaw / That's my shawty, yeah,” for example, lives in that moment of tension between “shaw” and “ty,” where he's given you a mess of syllables and, for one high-wire instant, you're not sure how, or if, he's going to make words out of them.
As for his flow, Post Malone has (like Lil Uzi Vert) a gift for constructing his verses out of distinct, melodic flows that build on each other. The first verse is sleepy, laid-back, easing you in, so that in the second verse when his voice leaps an octave to proclaim “Fuck practice, this shit just happens!” then you feel as excited as he does.
Now, any of these cover versions could be chasing that same magic, or they could take the building blocks of “White Iverson” and create a new monster. All I'm trying to find out, here, is whether musicians who go to all the trouble of arranging and recording a cover of this song see the same appeal in it that I do. To that end, let's go to:
French Montana / Rae Sremmurd Remix:
If you told me that you had strong feelings about French Montana, I would laugh in your face. He barely shows up here, spitting a quick and mediocre eight bars before turning it back over to Post's verse and chorus.
Rae Sremmurd acquit themselves better. Sing-songy and charismatic as they are, they're talented enough to spin an entirely new flow from the beat, which is more than most of these cover artists do. When Slxm Jxmmi lapses back into the original flow, it feels like a communion of one creator to another rather than a lack of ideas.
Grace Mitchell:
Mitchell keeps very little of the original beat, following the original melody over a UK house rhythm. She's a good singer who doesn't overdo it – she recreates a few of Post's vocal tics but confidently bites into them (“I ain't rich yet, but you know I ain't broke-uh”).
Her most jaw-dropping change is a single line at the end of the first chorus - “and you know my dad always wanted to have a son.” It feels like a cut to the quick, especially in this familiar context; that line alone is a bold emotional excavation dropped in the middle of a song which is otherwise more interested in blank masculine braggadocio. Bravo.
Money Woe:
This is a straight cover – same instrumental, same lyrics, same flow. It's not good. Imagine a frat boy doing a karaoke cover of “White Iverson” (and given what I know about Post Malone's fans, this is a common occurrence nightly nationwide) and then slather it in Auto-Tune. This singer sounds entirely too eager to be the character in the song. At least Post laid back in the beat.
The Score:
This version has DNA from Charlie Puth, The Chainsmokers, and Disclosure in it. The singer seems uninterested in the “character” of the lyrics, which is a great change from Money Woe's version. Instead he delivers a clean and professional X-Factor reading of the song. The beat is reorchestrated to good effect. It ends up more generic, but accentuates the original melody just as well.
Kiana Ledé:
Interesting – this version is only a minute and a half, lasting for the first verse and chorus plus a brief original stanza at the beginning.
The brevity combined with the vocal performance makes me think it's just a talent showcase, because Ledé oversings the hell out of this. She has a good voice, but… being a better singer than Post Malone is not that stunning an accomplishment. Mission accomplished, though?
Pollie Pop (Screwed & Chopped):
The chopped-and-screwed industry is alive and well in the absence of its originator and master DJ Screw, but the fact that half of these new releases have to clarify “chopped not slopped” is a testament to how many people do it badly and how singular Screw's vision and talent were. Not to get into a huge chopped-and-screwed exegesis.
About 70% of chopping and screwing is having the taste to know which songs will sound good when given the treatment, so Pollie Pop's got that aspect covered. The intoxicating lethargy of “White Iversion” is a great fit.
25% of it is chopping in the right places, of which I'm going to give them 10%. They overdo the chopping at every single point in the song and end up with some truly strange edits (“spendin' all my fpay”).
Last 5% is the mixing. They get 2% for abusing the flanging effects.
Final grade: 82%, B. You passed, Pollie Pop, but don't get complacent!
Cloud Talk:
Cloud Talk strip the low-end out of the song, focusing on the piano and drums. This arrangement leaves the whole thing feeling empty and strait-laced.
But they do have one good trick, which is to switch into double-time halfway through. When they get to the end and let the chorus ride with that beat, you can hear them grabbing at, and mostly grasping, a unique and worthwhile take on the song.
Key Notez:
A mostly straight cover – Key Notez sings the same chorus and lays down some original verses. He's really indebted to Post's flow, which would already be a problem if his lyrics weren't so generic. But it speaks well of Post that not many other rappers can find another way to grapple with this beat.
Casper (feat. Young Carter):
Casper goes one step further than Key Notez, using the same chorus flow but with original lyrics the whole way through. I'm assuming that Casper is the first rapper on the track and Young Carter the second here. Casper attacks the track too suddenly, going full-force and then lightening up. That can work on a certain type of beat, but not one this lackadaisical in the first place. You'll notice that Post did the opposite.
Young Carter fares alright – he sounds like he's only heard the instrumental and not the original song at all, leading to a verse wildly disconnected from Post's flow. Among so many biters, that's a blessing.
DJ Pro Code (Chopped & Screwed):
I prefer this chop-and-screw to Pollie Pop's. It's even lower-pitched, with less obnoxious flanging, and leaves the chorus mostly alone, saving the chops for the verses. DJ Pro Code does a good job with those, and he tends to make strange new words with his chops (“this shit just happens / can't stancan'tstand it”) which I suspect is the best approach.
Broken Boulevard:
Even more unbearably frat-boy than Money Woe. The singer attacks everything with the roof of his mouth, making for a bouncy, rubbery vocal that doesn't suit the song at all.
Shouts to the instrumental, though. Either it's the official one or it's the best recreation on the entire playlist. There's an art to these things, as we shall see.
Instrumental Trap Beats Gang:
This… sounds like it's in the same key? I could maybe see the original vocals fitting over this with some time dilution and stretching. But aside from that, the pouring and breathing sound effects make it sound more Weeknd than Post.
It's also way too busy to be a good rap instrumental. Constantly breaking into a new section or riff, with no space to breathe and let someone get in a verse. Hell, shuffle the arrangement around, add some more instruments at the end to develop it, and you've got a passable standalone instrumental song. But since it's made by “Instrumental Trap Beats Gang” and is presumably made for someone to rap over it, it misses the mark.
Young Carter (feat. KirkoCrazy):
Oh hey it's Young Carter again!!
I'm just going off my ears here and not any research into the matter, but it sounds like the same song as the Casper (feat. Young Carter) version. Except the good verse that I enjoyed for its originality is swapped out for a different rapper (KirkoCrazy, one assumes) with the same problems as Casper: bitten flow, generic lyrics. Maybe it was Casper who had the good verse after all?
Fletcher Fletcher:
Same beat. Same flow. Same lyrics. Singer bends his words in the chorus to emphasize the long 'A' sound - “saucayn / saucayn / i'm saucayn on you.” This is a vowel sound that fits into the song like scraping iron.
Instrumental Hip Hop Beats Gang:
Okay, I could kind of put Post Malone on that other instrumental and it made sense, but this is just a terrible Lex Luger ripoff beat that's mixed like tepid lentil water. Trash.
Don Mula:
I'm fond of this one, not entirely for reasons Don Mula intended. It's the same beat and samples Post's vocals for the chorus. To his credit, Mula tries to make it sound lively, like they're in the same room: “Aight Post… I see you, Post.”
The hilarious part of this is that the vocal sample is TERRIBLY mixed – overblown, distorted, wobbly. It sounds and feels like Don Mula is trying to commune with an enormous digital spectre. Ghost Malone.
Mula's good, though. He has good mic presence. I feel like he needs some jokes. Get him writing some hilarious one-liners and he could make a couple worthwhile songs.
Tiny-O:
Another instrumental beat that has little-to-nothing to do with “White Iverson” in form or feeling. Utterly forgettable.
Jonny, Greg and Allie Gorenc:
I see that this is from an album called Covers, which tips me off to the kind of act this is. I got burned out on these clean-cut cover bands back in like 2012 when Karmin got big and my life got exactly 3% worse. That may not sound like much, but it was my whole life.
This is fine, though. They change up the piano riff enough that the lighter, spidery vocal approach feels appropriate. And while the singer (no clue if it's Jonny or Greg) hews closely to the melody, he sometimes lets a vocal lick fly off. Those moments are nice.
Andrew Grant:
Once again, a vocalist that loves their long A's. Even moreso than Fletcher Fletcher. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against long A's on principle, but they don't fit in this song.
Either this one has an uncredited guest vocalist or it's a woman singing named Andrew. I find the second option infinitely cooler.
Casper:
Casper! You again?! I don't even know which one you are anymore. This version is credited to Casper solo but it's the exact same as the (feat. Young Carter) version. I just don't know who this guy is. Fix your tags, dude! If any readers out there want to dive into the mystery of Codeine Finesse Gang, hit me up.
Krojoe:
See, I actually downloaded and listened to Krojoe's album because of this. It's an 80-minute freestyle where he goes off the dome the entire time. Over the same beat. And if it wasn't clear from this blog post, I admire someone who can fanatically commit to an exhausting and stupid idea.
As you could guess from the “same beat” part of that description, this is not “White Iverson.” Dude just split the freestyle into chunks and named the tracks after popular songs to increase his search hits. I suspect that the Instrumental Trap/Hip-Hop Beats Gangs did this, too.
But I didn't like them. I like Krojoe. Some of these tracks, he's at a loss for words, which is forgivable when you're spontaneously rapping and singing for 80 minutes. But on this one, he's in a groove, and he spits some extremely nice nonsense. He should keep putting in work for a couple more years, and then I can see him getting some hype. You go, Krojoe.
Delux Twins:
A dance remix! I was wondering when we would get one of these.
Quite a good one, too. It takes what it needs from the original song – Post Malone's vocals, mostly the chorus – and disregards the original when it's time to dance.
Post sounds surprisingly natural as the focal point of an EDM track. He has that swagger in his voice and isn't trying too hard. Major Lazer collab when?
The Theorist:
Here's another type of song I knew we'd get to eventually: the muzak piano cover. These unimaginative versions of popular songs are everywhere now. You can't even get into an elevator without hearing a melody that Wiz Khalifa thought up turned into a dull tinkling.
Just take “White Iversion” and imagine every element rendered straightforwardly onto a grand piano. This sounds exactly like what you think it does. The only creative liberty in The Theorist's reading is a bit of glissando on the main “saucin', saucin'” riff. He probably took an hour and a half to arrange this and a day to lay down a good take. Bam. Sent off to a recording engineer to buff it up, then a manager to place it on an album and release it on Apple Music.
The album, by the way is volume six of a piano album series. Making these things is an industry now. Do you really care about “White Iverson,” The Theorist? Does it speak to you? I've listened to 30 versions of this song and I've driven myself so crazy trying to understand what makes it tick that I banned a vowel.
But you don't care, do you, The Theorist. You're probably recording a cover of one of those new Fall Out Boy songs as I speak.
Mia Malone / DJ Post Remake:
A remake of the beat for other rappers to use. This one is actually “White Iverson” though, not just a faceless instrumental that someone titled “White Iverson” to rack up the hits.
It used to be, when hip-hop singles came out on 7” records or CDs, that the B-sides would include clean versions and an official instrumental. But now that everything is digitally released, no such obligation exists. Rappers who want to try their hand at a hot new song have to rely on amateur beatmakers who upload “remakes” to YouTube. So I'm surprised that this is on Apple Music, which is a more professional market.
Anyway, you already know what I think of the “White Iverson” beat. It's great. If I wanted to freestyle over it, I would choose a different remake, because this one doesn't get that very resonant, old-church piano sound right. Tweaking those mixing knobs can be tough.
Shady Boy Pi:
On first glance I thought this was another Krojoe where he just uploaded a bunch of original songs and titled them after Post Malone songs, but I looked at the album this comes from and… it's just an original song named “White Iverson”? The chorus is even “White / white iverson!” so there's no mistake that it was intentional.
My brain is fried from trying to litigate all this shit. This is a really damn good song regardless. Sounds like a Spanish Fort Minor. Very conscious hip-hop, which I haven't bothered to listen to in a while since everything's all trap music now. I like it.
Lutes Vegas:
God, I'm so close to the end and you want me to write about some no-name who just wants to be The-Dream? He titled his album Love Hate, for fuck's sake. This version is the final nail in the coffin for long A's. Lutes just repeats “I'm faded / I'm faded / I'm faded on woo” instead of the actual chorus and it's so grating.
Karaoke Guru:
Another beat remake, but this one shoves in a muffled wood-block rhythm on the offbeat that isn't in the original nor, for that matter, any of the other beat remakes. Very distracting and cheap-sounding.
DJ Kushingham Productions:
What lies at the bottom of the barrel? Another instrumental “remake” that's actually just an original beat. This is the laziest, most annoying one yet, a lethargic dirge that shuffles between two notes. With prominent bongos. By the time the trap drums and twinkling lead line comes in, it sounds more like a Three 6 Mafia lift than a “White Iverson” lift. And no, you don't get any points for ripping off something I like better if your beat sucks this much.
“DJ Kushingham” is a great name, though.
Money Woe (Acapella):
CHRIST WHY
***
“White Iverson” isn't impossible to successfully translate. Most of these covers did a mixed job of it, but out of all the options, Grace Mitchell does the best job at flipping the song and adding new dimensions to it. Honorable mentions go to Delux Twins and DJ Pro Code. Gotta give some love to Krojoe and Shady Boy Pi even if what they made wasn't “White Iverson.”
This might surprise you, but listening to all these different takes on “White Iverson” doesn't destroy or wear out my love for the song. I'm listening to the original again as we speak, with a new appreciation for how delicate the mix of elements needed to be for it to come off right. How much the song's heart relied on Post's particular talent for words and sounds. Actually kind of sad that he went straight into self-parody with "Congratulations" instead of building a larger discography as an underground rapper doing what he does best. But we'll always have "White Iverson." And "White Iverson." Also "White Iverson." "Don't forget about "White Iverson"!
