Club rapper Flo Rida gets very little respect, but say what you will about him, he usually comes up with some pretty damned good songs. Granted, a lot of that is his choice of collaborators…he functions as a showbiz remora of sorts, latching onto people more talented than himself and relying on guest artists and samples to carry his songs. That said, he’s not completely devoid of artistic talent. His lyrics are nearly always just party-song cliches (and whenever he attempts more than that he just reminds you why he shouldn’t), but there’s a reason he calls himself “Flo Rida”. He’s actually the direct ancestor of acts like Young Thug and Future, where the melodic flow of the delivery is more important than the actual words. He’s certainly primitive compared to those later acts, but he’s come up with some pretty good tune fragments in his day, and he ultimately functions more as a singer than a rapper. As for this particular song, producer David Guetta basically just recycled the formula that had given him a smash hit the year before with the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”, but this song actually manages to improve on “I Gotta Feeling”, largely by dint of having better, less repetitive lyrics. The lyrics, improved though they are, still aren’t exactly Shakespeare…they’re mostly the typical Flo Rida cliches…but that’s still far less annoying than hearing every phrase in the lyrics ten times in a row. And the chorus (featuring vocals by an uncredited Nicole Scherzinger) is possibly the single greatest hook from any Flo Rida song, which is saying something for Pop Music’s acknowledged King of catchy choruses (even if he didn’t write any of them himself). Between that, the superb production, and some forcefully joyous ‘flows’ from Flo Rida, this is probably the best old-style Club track of the whole Club-music boom…but then, it was produced by David Guetta, who would help take popular Dance music to a whole new level a year or so after this song came out.
Verdict: Good.