Rick Ross, "Hold Me Back": Why This Song Sucks (There Are Zero Fat Jokes, So There)

[Editor's note: Why This Song Sucks determines why particular tracks blow using science. It appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday.]

Song: Rick Ross, "Hold Me Back"

History: Rappers Meek Mill and Wale released a song called "Actin' Up." It was loud, boisterous and aggressively circular (the front half of the chorus: "These hoes be actin' up. These hoes be actin' up. These hoes be actin' up. And these niggas be lettin' 'em"). It was also mega-fun. People liked it a lot. Rick Ross did too. So much so that he just went ahead and made a loud, boisterous, aggressively circular facsimile and released several weeks later like the first version didn't even exist. That hoe was actin' up, I suppose. Life imitating art, I suppose.

Atmospherics: HYPERholdmeback-y; like production camp J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League made it, except production camp J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League didn't make it; super duper rat-a-tat snares.

Analysis: The song is effective, no doubt. (And, admittedly, Ross is far more capable of pulling off this sort of thing than Mill or Wale.) But still, there are indelicacies, one giganto one within the song's fundamental ideology, and a few tinier ones in the lyrics.

Regarding the ideology: It's actually based on a brilliant (albeit asshole-y) bit of semantic philosophy first offered forth by this Greek philosopher from around the way named Demetrius. It's one of those "If A Tree Falls In The Forest And No One Is Around To Hear It" situations, for real. Here, take a look, this is a scanned page from an really old, really legitimate philosophy book called Logictus Holdmebacktus. Don't Google it. I didn't make it up, but still. Anyway, the page:

Fully aware "ad infinitum" is Latin, thanks.

Boom.