Thank whomsoever you enjoy praying to for T.I.
Now, I’m not at all saying this song and its video are worthy of divine praise; rather, I’m saying we should be thankful that they aren’t as shitty as they could have been. The song is essentially a memory trip (surprise, surprise), with a specific focus on three young women from each rapper’s past. The song’s saving grace is that, where it could have delved further into the cesspool that is mainstream rap, it pulls back and instead allows for lyrics with more poignancy and meaning. The very fact that I’m writing this review shows that the lyrics of this song aren’t completely about fucking, smoking weed, or making money, because if that were true, I wouldn’t even bother.
The video for “Memories Back Then” features the artists heavily, something I’m usually a fan of, but the three guys rapping, T.I., B.O.B., and Kendrick Lamar, all basically do the same thing when they’re rapping. It’s a lot of open palm hand waving and pointing at the camera or the sky. I don’t mean to say that they do nothing while performing, but rather they do very little and, by the end of a video with three different artists rapping, very little equates to nothing. In between those clips are the dramatizations of the stories each rapper is telling; that is, stories of a girl they were involved with back in high school or before their stardom. B.O.B. talks about a jealous girlfriend who he then fucks. Kendrick talks about some hot girl (what she wears, what she does) and then continues to talk about his own success (cue vomiting by yours truly).
T.I., however, has the best story and best lyrics and honestly did we even expect anything different from him? His story centers on a girl who essentially sleeps around and occasionally dabbles in the drug trade and eventually talks about how she just wants to feel any sort of love, whether it be found in a lasting relationship or in a park bathroom quickie. It is around this part of the song that I truly appreciate Kris Stephens’ voice (which I’ve never heard til now). While she isn’t the actress playing T.I.’s story’s girl, her chorus coming in at the end of his verse hits just the right spot. That soft voice carries nostalgia naturally and it complements T.I. incredibly well. While I wish she had played a more prominent role in the video (cutting to shots of her singing against a night sky backdrop with the wind blowing in her hair every time the chorus comes on is a shitty representation of the woman singing your chorus, just sayin), she did absolutely kill that chorus. A parting question though: B.O.B. and Kendrick are usually good on their own, so why are they not very pleasant in this collab setting? Riddle me that one.