Justin Bieber has reached a new milestone. The 16-year-old singer from Canada has been mobbed by fans at malls, achieved the most YouTube video streams, and scored No. 1 on the charts. But now, he has officially hit a hip hop plateau, recording with the legendary Wu Tang Clan rapper Raekwon and Kanye West.
The Kanye-produced remix of Bieber's "Runaway Love," featuring rap verses from Raekwon and Kanye, was released Monday, and includes a surprise.
The revamped track incorporates a sample of the classic 1993 Wu-Tang Clan song "Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F*** Wit."
Raekwon opens the record by giving a shout out to "JB" and "'Ye," before suggesting that he take his runaway love on a rendezvous to Jamaica. He raps, "It's obvious, I want to see who your mommy is."
Aside from a slightly accelerated tempo, Bieber's verses are aligned with the original version. His stripped-down, airy vocals float over the rumbling rap track.
Kanye found a way to make the otherwise odd grouping work. For his rhymes, he gives props to Bieber ("Nobody rocking like this [at] 16 years old") and the Staten Island rap crew ("I'm telling what Wu-Tang taught me"), before explaining that getting caught cheating is what scared his girl off.
