When Migos dropped this song featuring Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, our jaws dropped, too. It wasn’t just the gleam of the accompanying high-tech futuristic video. It was the way the lyrics revved like suped up whips at a drag race, words hammering like pistons, offering visions of speed, aggression, and success in a fevered blur:

"Uh, the coupe came imported/This season's Off-White come in snorted/Green Lamborghini a tortoise/No human being, I'm immortal/Patek and A.P. full of water/Hundred K, I spend on my señora/My pinky on margarine, butter/And my ears got McDonald's nuggets"

We still get whiplash listening to it today.

They say collaborating with major talent brings out your greatness, and in this track featuring Champagne Papi, Migos more than rises to the occasion. In the video, Migos take us back to the funky old 1970s, with Jamie Foxx playing the host of a disco dance show. Once again, their choice of words create a dense, hard surface, a mesh of images in which syllables pop each other like rocks, as Migos celebrates stacking their riches with this intricate maze of wordplay:

“Eliott got me rocky/ Blow a socket, chicken teriyaki/ Take off, rocket keep 'em in pocket/ Water gon' lock it/ Quadruple the profit! (profit!)/ I walk like I walk (hey!)/ Talk like I talk (whoa)/ What's in my vault? Load of cash and assaults (brrr)/ I put a lab in my loft (lab)/ She cook up, and jab with the folk (jab)/ By the pair, I got karats that choke (by the pair)/ By the pair, I got karats each load (by the pair)/ Private life, private jets 'round the globe (private life).”

Featuring 2 Chainz, and the dense use of rhythmic triplets in the rhymes, this lyric manages to name drop the volatile boxer Adrien Broner, magician David Copperfield, and manages to make being a mama’s boy sound cool, all in the space of 10 seconds of lyrical brilliance:

"I love my mama, never change, your honor/So I gotta let his mama live/I beat the pot up like Adrien Broner/Make him vanish, David Copperfield/Came in the game and was independent/They was screaming out that we ain't got a deal/Said I ain't playing, this the face I make when I call my plug and he ain't got a sell."

"Light It Up," which features a posthumous verse from Pop Smoke, is a menacing, drill-fluenced banger, with a hook that offers an oblique reference to the way Pop Smoke helped bring drill music back to Brooklyn. And buried in the half-rhymes (“profit,” “narcotic,” “toxic,” and “faucet,”) an entire world is distilled down to four perfect bars, a hip-hop haiku:

“When I pull up, make a wish/ Makin' a, makin' a profit/ Big boy, big boy, yeah, narcotics (narcotics)/ Pour me a drink and it's toxic (drank)/ New York drippin', it's straight out the faucet (drip)"

Complimented by a standout feature from Drake, this song is a perfect example of the sonically satisfying way Migos uses the sound of close and imperfect rhymes (for example, the way “circulation,” “matrix” and “lavish” bang up against one another). They have spot-on instincts for the way hard consonants create staccato rhythmic patterns--patterns that they inevitably subvert with clever internal rhymes, as in this example:

“caught me some cases, then beat it, then raced it (Hey)/ Seen they was hatin', no communication/ No invitation, cut off circulation (No)/ Blue or the red Bugatti, this the Matrix/ Crosses all on my body, watch for Satan (Chromes)/ I'm havin', gallery lavish/ No talkin', we smashin' (Smash)/ This one a classic, ain't none of this average (Classic).”

That last line pretty much sums it up.

To see Migos perform, watch the BET Awards on June 27, 2021 at 8/7 C