Believe it or not, Fetty Wap and Frank Sinatra have a couple of things in common. Both are natives of New Jersey. Both have hits with the same title: “My Way.”
And that’s about where the list of similarities between Ol’ Blue Eyes and the 25-year-old rapper born Willie Maxwell who lost an eye to glaucoma abruptly ends.
Fetty Wap exploded onto the scene this year with his first big hit, “Trap Queen,” which has loitered in the upper echelons of Billboard’s Hot 100 for much of 2015 on the strength of these kinds of rhymes: “Man, I swear I love her how she work the d–n pole/Hit the strip club, we be letting bands go.” Now the rapper-turned-R&B singer—whose odd-sounding stage moniker mashes up a street-jargon reference to money with a word pulled from the lyrics of a Gucci Mane song—is back with an ode to “romance,” hip-hop style.
He starts his “pitch” to a would-be squeeze with, “There is something you should know: I don’t ever chase no hoes.” Alrighty, then. So who does he chase? “I spotted you, you had that glow.” And how does he chase? “Watch me pull out all this dough/take you where you want to go.”
Well, Fetty’s making headway, it would seem … I guess. This glowing girl might not yet be his but, hey, at least she’s hollering his name during sex with her ex (“Big Zoo Wap in her dreams, ay/Well, he mad as f— when they sex, she scream for me ay”). That’s enough to make Fetty start mocking his would-be rival, who’s apparently a struggling fellow rapper with not nearly as much cash on hand (“How dare that n-gga run his mouth when his pockets are in a drought/The last single he put out didn’t even make it out/ … He dumb as h—, and I swear his a– don’t think”).
Uh-oh. The taunts aren’t tight enough, apparently. So it’s on to ominous, murderous threats to get this dude out of that glowing girl’s life (“All headshots if you think you could take my b–ch”).
A verse from guest contributor Monty adds more sex (“Baby girl, you can stay the night ’til morn”), more bling ‘n’ bravado (“All this ice on my arm, what you like? What you want?/ … All this money, Ima cash it”), more reckless bravado (“I’m swervin’ all in traffic while I’m trapping out to the mansion/And I’m moving through the Tri-State/Doing 200 on the highway/And I’m swerving in my I8”) and more violent threats (“Try and take my b–ch, you gonna take two to the head”).
Monty wraps up Wap’s song with, “Baby, you should come my way.” But baby—not to mention music fans—would be wise to get out of the way.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
