Quavo and Lana Del Rey. Photo by Wyatt Spain Winfrey.
In 2021, Lana Del Rey said her dream collaboration would be Migos. “I think they kicked off a new super fun, super autobiographical, completely different style of rap,” she told Variety during a red carpet scrum. “I love them.” Lana's fascination with hip-hop stretches back over a decade, but the timing seemed odd: her albums from that year, Chemtrails over the Country Club and Blue Banisters, were folksier singer-songwriter affairs, softer and stripped down. But where March’s Chemtrails leaned acoustic and traditional, a niche within the niche of Lana's sound, October’s Banisters refracted the wider expanse of Del Rey's agglomerated Americana into something more amorphous: here, a burst of Ennio Morricone turned trap, there, outtakes from 2014's psych rock foray Ultraviolence. Working with Migos, an act so established they've done ads for Apple, wouldn't be so unusual — after all, she'd gotten Playboi Carti on a track back in 2017.
Fast forward two and a half years to "Tough," a duet with Quavo that notches a new high for Lana's rap collaborations. The country-trap ballad sits closer to Lana’s jazz and hip-hop-propelled solo work than "Summer Bummer," hewing closer to the multigenre synthesis of 2023's Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd or even the trip-hop pulse of 2012's Born to Die and 2016's Honeymoon. But "Tough" forgoes the confessional mode of Tunnel, instead thrumming with a steely resolve that feels lived-in rather than put on. Del Rey sets the scene, and then — the drums kick in for Quavo’s tight melodic verse. He mirrors the solitude that permeates Lana Del Rey's discography, stretching elastically to punctuate his bars: “Still shinin’ and that’s hard / If you ever lost someone that you love.”
Casual onlookers best acquainted with "Bad N Boujee" or "Stir Fry" may find Quavo's emotional depth here a pleasant surprise, though he's always shown us glimpses of the man behind the Versace shades. His turn on “Tough” vaguely recalls his philandering appearance on Young Thug’s romantic “You Said;” 2013’s "Thank You God" found Quavo outlining the struggle of being raised by a single parent, while 2017's "Out Yo Way" could almost read like a male counterpart to Lana Del Rey's breakout "Videogames" if she was bringing her man a double cup.
Quavo has been seeing angel numbers “all the time” since Takeoff passed. “He communicate with me like that.” the rapper said last July, nine months after his nephew was shot and killed in Houston. Angel numbers are strings of repeated digits (444, 222, 333, etcetera) that some see as messages from a higher power or the deceased. 1111 symbolizes divine guidance, a signal that you’re on the path to your destiny and your guardian angels are close at hand. Quavo toys with this idea on “11.11,” recorded the same date as Takeoff’s 2022 memorial: “I never ask God why, I just go where the road designed.”
This tilt towards the morbid and metaphysical was scrawled all over his August album Rocket Power, which highlighted the tiny fissures in Quavo’s stoic facade like so much gold lacquer. Where 2018’s QUAVO HUNCHO found Quavo fully inhabiting the role of the trapstar-turned-popstar, he’s since inverted that idea, nostalgic for days at the bando, less interested in the spoils of celebrity. You can trace a similar line through Del Rey’s albums as she’s turned her cinematic lens inward, carefully unweaving the threads of her life.
Although she draws on a different palette of influences, Lana’s blend of hip-hop rhythms and indie rock balladry has always felt like a natural counterpart to rap’s agglomeration of rock and country. In that sense, “Tough” is a photonegative of music by Lil Peep or Jelly Roll, even if Quavo and Lana prefer to dispense remixed comparisons: life is like “crawlin’ in the mud,” as hard as “nickel-wound strings on your good ol’ Gibson guitar.” Back in May, Lana said her forthcoming album Lasso was “more melodic” and less “self-revealing” than her last three albums (Chemtrails, Banisters, and Tunnel). Particularly on the latter two, sudden interjections of trap drums jut out abruptly, Del Rey and her collaborators treating albums as sonic collage. Easygoing and approachable, “Tough” instead recalls the glossier hybridization of Tumblr apocrypha “Ridin’” wearing Stetsons rather than Litas.
“Tough” rejects fame by ignoring it altogether (musically), zooming in on red dirt and blue collars. “Life’s gonna do what it does / Sure as the good lord’s up above,” Lana sighs on the chorus, embodying a sort of everyman hardship. Aiming for universality rather than autobiography can lead to generic songs; here, it just feels simple, like when Quavo shrugs, “It was kinda hard for me” as if every pertinent detail can be found in his voice. Stitching country tropes to booming 808s isn’t a new trick, but unlike Moneybagg Yo feat. Morgan Wallen or “Old Town Road,” this song aims for intimacy.
It’s as if the spotlights never turned on at all, or perhaps Lana and Quavo are totally blind to the glare of TMZ flashbulbs spurred by rumors of a relationship. This is, of course, a little studied, a little put on — dating allegations as promo have been old hat forever, and the pair’s Instagram teasers have cheerfully leveraged our voyeuristic impulses — but the artifice is mercifully limited to the marketing.
Besides, rap and country have always been reflexive, metatextual genres — this is show business, after all. Shrinking the widescreen romance of Lust For Life down to the size of an iPhone, “Tough” entices the audience closer. You won’t want to miss what happens next.
