Henry’s Music Blog

Flo Rida is probably the most successful rapper on the charts these days. People like Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Eminem may have more acclaim, but Flo seems like the only one who can consistently make the top 10. In fact, at this writing, the only other two rappers in the top 10 are Nicki Minaj, who did it with a pop song (Starships), and Wiz Khalifa, featuring on Maroon 5’s newest single (Payphone, which I might review soon, still deciding). So Flo is the only rapper in the top 10 with a rap song where he’s the star. So what makes him so popular? Well, let’s first look at his history.

Unlike the previous artists I’ve looked at before, when Flo Rida started, he immediately became huge. His 1st single “Low”, now one of the most ubiquitous hits of the last 10 years, quickly became the biggest hit of the year, lasting for 10 week at the top of the charts, and became the 3rd biggest hit of the 2000s, beaten only by “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey and “Yeah” by Usher, with Flo and Usher beating Mariah in the long run for the song that stayed in people’s minds. Ever since then, with every album he’s released, he’s had at least one big hit, with “Right Round”, “Club Can’t Handle Me”, and two off his currently unreleased 4th album, with “Good Feeling” and “Wild Ones”. Pretty impressive for someone who’s relatively new to the world of pop, and for another reason I’ll get to later.

I feel that it’s nearly impossible to live in the US and not have heard at least one Flo Rida song. At the very least, you’ve heard “Low.” So what do I think about him? Honestly, most of his stuff his not designed for me. Songs like “Low” and “Right Round” are really not designed to be listened to anywhere outside of a club. However, with the singles “Good Feeling” and “Wild Ones”, I feel that it’s a lot better. Not Flo Rida himself though, seeing as he can’t go a song with rhyming bottles and models, but the songs themselves have finally managed to come across as actual pieces of music, rather than a soundtrack to grinding. But it’s not the music that get’s me about Flo. It’s his personality, or lack thereof.

With most rapper, you can say at least one thing about them. Jay-Z is calm and collected. Kanye is hot-headed and arrogant. Lil Wayne is tattooed to hell, and has a posse that actually got popular. Pitbull is… really fucking pale. But can you honestly say one interesting thing about Flo Rida? His songs never talk about himself, meaning he has the ability to boast in a song without saying a god damn thing. He doesn’t have a real identity in the world. People know the name, but not the performer, similar to Carly Rae Jaspen, and at least “Call Me Maybe” was quirky enough to make you remember the singer.

So in short, what does Flo Rida got going for him? Catchy songs, and that’s about it. He’s always destined to have a huge hit in the meantime, but are you ever going to remember HIM? I think not. He’s not offensive to my senses like Nicki Minaj or Justin Bieber, but he’s not someone who would immediately drag me to a song, like Lady Gaga or Calvin Harris. So in conclusion, eh.