Why Jay Rock’s feature in ‘Money Trees’ is his greatest verse
It’s hard to talk about hip hop today without mentioning Kendrick Lamar. Aside from his legendary public hanging, quartering and drawing of Drake over the last few months, his discography is unquestionably littered with all-time great tracks. From yelling “Wop wop wop wop wop” when ‘Not like us’ comes on, to telling anyone who will listen to sit down when “Humble” floats through the air waves, we’ve all been swept up in a little bit of Kendrick euphoria (there’s another one) at one stage or another. However, it might sound blasphemous to say this, given his propensity to flex his litheness with language, could it be that he is not the main draw on one of his biggest tracks?
When good kid, m.A.A.d city was released in 2012, some of the tracks became immediately recognisable as classics. ‘m.A.A.d city’ sharing its title was a good indicator that it was going to be a banger, and ‘Swimming pools’, with its transition from the infamous low frequency intro to K Dot’s fast paced flow, was a masterclass in production. Neither of these was able to compare with the track, which gained more streams on Spotify than both of those tracks combined: ‘Money Trees’.
Not only do the lyrics speak of the harsh realities that Lamar had to face growing up in Compton (whatever the man was on when he cooked up “Halle Berry to Hallelujah,” we need some more of that), but the entire ensemble required to create the melodic up-and-down backing tune is closer to an orchestra than a set of DJ decks. All of these points make the track a hard one to top. Yet, the crescendo, so to speak, is only introduced at the 4:26 mark.
Signed to Top Dawg Entertainment, just as Kendrick is, meant that Jay Rock has collaborated with the great man on a number of occasions. From ‘King’s dead’ to ‘Wow freestyle’ to ‘Hood gone love it’, the Lamar-Rock combination is a tried and tested tune maker. On ‘Money trees’, though, Jay Rock takes centre stage.
Where Kendrick starts slowly with a noise to set the tone, Jay Rock, when his time comes, gets stuck straight into his breathless flow. It’s as if the cadence itself sets the scene for the go go go lifestyle of a child on the streets in suburban LA. The enunciation of his “Ps” perfectly matched with the strikes of the high hats to build the tension without breaking the flow. The final two sentences of the verse hold the most value as he finally slows down the tempo in his delivery, only by a fraction, to draw extra attention to the message he’s trying to get across. Finishing with his only mention of the title of the track.
There is no question that Kendrick Lamar has had a more successful career than Jay Rock. The former has carried the latter to some degree, to a lot of his successes. However, for this brief stretch, the roles were reversed.