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Music

A Year of Lil Wayne: This J. Lo Song

Wayne was in J. Lo's phone way before Drake was trying to drunk dial her.

Day 190: "I'm Into You" feat. Lil Wayne – Jennifer Lopez, LOVE?, 2011

Long before J. Lo changed her number and curved a drunk-texting Drake, Lil Wayne was on her speed dial when she needed a hit. And make a hit they did: "I'm Into You" went gold, and the video is currently sitting just below a quarter billion views on YouTube. J. Lo is quite frankly in top form in the video—and on the song. Wayne does well for himself, too, rising well above the tacked-on quality that rap features on pop songs can often have to become an integral part of the track. As much as Wayne's core fanbase thinks about, like, Drought 3 freestyles as his signature work, for the vast majority of the country, Lil Wayne is better known for being on, like, every hit song ever.

And the more I delve into the trend I've been discussing the past couple days of Wayne popping up on R&B singers' pop songs, the more it amazes me how deep Wayne's catalogue in this particular niche. Wayne is everywhere. He made it onto the Confessions of a Shopaholic soundtrack! And not only is all over the place, but he also excels at fleshing out these songs. On "I'm Into You," his voice provides extra percussion with the drumbeats as he repeats "It's too late" and "I'm into you" in the background throughout. And his verse has a simple economy to it that fits the song's movement through a few different sonic phases. These closing lines are especially strong: "Now tell me what you like, I like what you tell me / and if you understand me, you can overwhelm me / it's too late, it's too late, every finish line is the beginning of a new race."

Wayne seems to relish these kinds of features. While many of his peers might see a song like this as a quick check, Wayne devotes energy to it, and one has to imagine that he reaps outsize rewards because of it. This is the kind of verse that can make a casual listener decide they identify as a Lil Wayne fan, and that's worth far more than whatever this feature alone cost J. Lo's label.

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