FVTV original music feature ·
Busydakid’s “Patten Patten Up” Has a Hook Worth Shouting. The Vocals Need Room to Breathe.
The Ipswich rapper turns self-reliance into a two-minute chant, but the crowded mix keeps some of the message out of reach.
Who do you turn to when you are going through it and nobody is picking up? Busydakid puts that question at the front of “Patten Patten Up” and answers it with a phrase that sounds built for a roomful of people to yell back: motivate yourself. Patten patten up.
The hook arrives around 44 seconds in. It is the part of the track that works immediately, even before you catch every word of the verses. Busydakid is talking himself into moving forward without waiting for somebody else to give him permission. There is frustration in it, but more stubbornness than self-pity.
At just over two minutes, the record moves quickly. Its bounce gives the chant a physical push. The Ipswich artist's submitted biography describes roughly two decades of making music. You can hear that experience in how comfortably he sits inside the beat rather than chasing it. The song does not need a longer runtime to make its point.
It does need a cleaner vocal presentation. Several verse passages get swallowed by the instrumental and stacked ad-libs. The words smear together just when the record is asking listeners to take its advice seriously. It is frustrating because the hook proves the central idea is strong. The layers build excitement, then compete with the person delivering the message.
Push the lead vocal forward, pull back overlapping layers and leave more air around the clearest lines. The chant can handle repetition; the verses need definition. “Patten Patten Up,” from the “Heron Wave 3.5 (Soul Train)” project, has a command strong enough to survive outside the song. A sharper mix would let the rest of Busydakid's story travel with it.