Song of the Week delves into the fresh songs we just can’t get out of our heads. Find these tracks and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist, and for our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, SZA enlists Doja Cat for a renovated version of “Kill Bill.”
Cold take of the year incoming: SZA’s “Kill Bill” is a damn good song. The standout cut from her immaculate SOS has remained a force on the charts and in our hearts well into 2023 thanks to its irresistible beat, vulnerable charisma, and lyrics that provide an outlet for us to be our best toxic selves. Now, Doja Cat has decided she’s also “so mature,” contributing a rap verse for a new remix of the hit track.
This isn’t the first time Doja Cat and SZA have joined forces to take over the charts, as it was just two short years ago that “Kiss Me More” nabbed the pair a Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. But on “Kill Bill,” the script is flipped. Instead of SZA bringing her emotionality to Doja Cat’s high-energy bop, Doja matches SZA’s post-breakup, down-bad vibe.
“She grabbed the kitchen knife, so I pulled her out the blick/ Ain’t got it all the time, thank God I did for this/ ‘Cause she was seein’ red, and all I saw was you/ It happened in a flash when she charged at me,” she raps, expanding the threat of the original tune. “Y’all criss-crossed, saw her fall to the floor/ Then you paused there in horror, but that shot wasn’t for her.”
The rapped verse from Doja Cat makes good on the artist’s promise to pivot away from pop music. “Pop isnt exciting to me anymore. I dont wanna make it,” she wrote on Twitter after declaring that she has set out to prove herself as an MC. As one of her first appearances on the mic since making such a declaration, it seems like she’s well on her way to doing just that.
But even devoid of the context of two modern pop icons reuniting or Doja Cat’s quest to the haters wrong, the “Kill Bill” remix somehow accomplishes the impossible feat of injecting the original with an even grander sense of fun.
— Jonah Krueger
:quality(85):upscale()/2023/05/11/976/n/1922564/782262e2645d6b967847b4.74342194_.png)
