SMOOTH BY STEVEN FOGAMOMI (feat. VEHNU MOON & MIKO VENOM)

Many are asking which song entitled “Smooth” is better, this or Santana’s (feat. Rob Thomas). Well, the obvious answer is the platinum hit by Santana. I mean, the iconic guitar and Rob Thomas’s delivery of the first line, “Man, it’s a hot one,” and, “Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa” is just too good to be beaten. But this is a close second.

Now if you know me at all, you know that my musical expertise is anything but hip hop and R&B, but I will still attempt to paint you a picture of what I believe the song is, and then you can judge for yourself.

Now, like most successful hip hop beats and melodies, you can measure its success by how catchy the hook is. The one line that your mind will grab ahold of, that will play in your head like a broken record when you least want it to. Like during a test. Or during a work meeting.  Or late at night when you need to wake up early in the morning. Or for some of us, it’s the MacGruber theme song during a fever dream (a story that I will tell at a latter time). It’s ironic that in popular music the thing that catches our attention first—the thing that reels us in—is eventually the thing that drives us crazy. And let me tell you, this song has that.

The entire chorus consumes the rest of the song to the point that in my head they have become one and the same. There is no verse and chorus, it is just one song.

And it’s a song that reminded me of someone but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Was it early Ne-Yo? Was it some 90s R&B song baked into my subconscious the title of which I was simply unaware? Was it Sean Kingston? Was I so R&B illiterate that I was on some fool’s errand never to be satisfied? Most likely, but I scoured the interwebs for hours (and by hours, I mean approximately 2 episodes of Seinfeld) looking for a comparison. Alas, I came up short. Maybe they have no comparison. One thing I do know is that they think they’re “smooth,” and, “the cool kids on the block.”