The 'Bad Boys For Life' Soundtrack Looks Like The Dumbest Album Ever Made
17 years ago, somebody got lucky with the soundtrack for the motion picture Bad Boys II. P. Diddy, who had spent a decade using the phrase “Bad Boy” to great effect, served as executive producer for the soundtrack album, and it captured a moment extremely flashy party-rap. That album had hits like the Diddy/Nelly/Murphy Lee collab “Shake Ya Tailfeather” and Jay-Z’s “La-La-La.” The album went to #1 and eventually went platinum. The same thing will probably not happen with the soundtrack for the new Bad Boys movie.
Bad Boys For Life, the third film in the Bad Boys trilogy, once again features an increasingly haggard and hit-hungry Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as wisecracking Miami police ficers whose lives include a great many explosions. Original Bad Boys auteur Michael Bay does not return, possibly because he was too busy making the unbelievably shitty Netflix movie 6 Underground. Instead, Belgian directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are taking over. It doesn’t look great!
This time around DJ Khaled — who appears in Bad Boys For Life, playing a character named Manny the Butcher — served as executive producer on the soundtrack album. That means we’re getting a whole lot random collaborations, this time featuring a whole lot urbano artists. There’s a Meek Mill song with Farruko, a Rick Ross song with Bryson Tiller, and a Pitbull/Lil Jon collab called “Damn I Love Miami” that I can’t wait to hear. The whole thing appears to be a beautiful, shimmering example what happens when you throw a bunch famous people onto an album together, where the best-case scenario becomes a sort witless blur sound.
The album’s first single is the Fergieless Black Eyed Peas comeback that nobody asked for. “RITMO (Bad Boys For Life)” features the omnipresent J Balvin and interpolates Corona’s 1993 Euro-dance song “The Rhythm Of The Night.” It came out in October, and it’s bad. That song appears twice on the album — in its original form, and in a remix that features Will Smith’s son Jaden. (Jaden Smith also has a solo song called “The Hottest” on the soundtrack. Is it possible for Jaden Smith to sell out?)
This week, we got the video for the next single, a collaboration from seasoned reggaeton dons Daddy Yankee and Bad Boys For Life star Nicky Jam called “Muévelo.” The song is a perfectly acceptable, not-very-exciting piece big-money reggaeton with an interpolation the na-na-na bit from Ini Kamoze’s “Here Comes The Hotstepper.” The entertainingly ridiculous video takes place in one those fantasy worlds where repressive police want to stop good-looking diverse groups young people from dancing. The best part is when somebody does a flip f a riot cop’s shield. Here it is:
And here’s the soundtrack, Billboard:
01 Meek Mill – “Uptown II” (Feat. Farruko)
02 City Girls – “Money Fight”
03 The Black Eyed Peas X J Balvin – “RITMO (Bad Boys For Life)”
04 Rick Ross – “Future Bright” (Feat. Bryson Tiller)
05 DJ Durel – “Bad Moves” (Feat. Quavo & Rich The Kid)
06 Nicky Jam & Daddy Yankee – “Muévelo”
07 Pitbull X Lil Jon – “Damn I Love Miami”
08 Jaden Smith – “The Hottest”
09 Buju Banton – “Murda She Wrote”
10 The Black Eyed Peas, J Balvin & Jaden Smith – “RITMO (Bad Boys For Life) (Remix)”
The Bad Boys For Life soundtrack is out 1/17! It looks godawful!