For years, there have been spirited debates over which member of Migos is the best. That kind of inter-group ranking is a staple of hip-hop fandom, whether seeing Big Boi unfavorably compared to Andre 3000 no matter how much Georgians themselves protested, or trying to compare individual stats regardless of how it wouldn’t be possible without a team effort. Yet, despite Quavo’s flashiness as the de facto bandleader, or Offset’s own natural charisma and skill, my pick for MIgos’ top spot was always Takeoff and even his more public-facing bandmates would have supported this choice. Takeoff, who was fatally shot last week at age 28, was the youngest member of the trio, but he was the first in the group to start rapping, and his rhyme-stacking sounded like he had been doing it for decades. The group’s leading technical stylist, he used to protest when Quavo would call him the group’s best rapper, though in what may be his last interview, on Drink Champs, he finally seemed to take that compliment to heart. “I mean, it’s time to give me my flowers. I don’t want them when I ain’t here,” he said.
A decade ago, when Quavo and Offset had to network with nightclub and strip club DJs on the group’s behalf, Takeoff wasn’t even old enough to drink. According to DJ Ray G, who was instrumental in the group’s rise out of their native Lawrenceville, Georgia, Takeoff didn’t mind staying at home either. He had other priorities: “We’d come back home and he’d still be awake—smoking, chilling, vibing,” Ray G told me last week. “And you’d check his YouTube history and it’s Tupac and Biggie, shit like that. This kid’s 16, studying his craft—like, ‘I ain’t going out with you tonight. I’m going to stay here and listen to Big, Pac, Eminem.’”
Takeoff would demonstrate his studiousness throughout his career, though his references to hip-hop’s past never came off as stodgy because his verses were so dynamic. Migos could have chosen any luxury brand to boast, for example, though only one had the hip-hop cred Takeoff craved, and now we can’t hear the brand’s name without hearing how he used to repeat it: “I’m feeling like Christopher Wallace / Versace, Versace, Versace.” Getting a Drake remix for their first gold-selling hit, 2014’s “Fight Night,” may have shown that Migos had arrived, but Takeoff’s writing signaled that they were here to stay as he takes lead and lands one left hook of a rhyme after another: “If you know me, know this ain’t my feng shui / Certified everywhere, ain’t gotta print my resume / Talking crazy, I pull up, andale / R.I.P. to Nate Dogg, I had to regulate.” DJ Khaled would spark an entire debate over whether he was wrong to sample OutKast’s “Ms. Jackson,” a song considered “too classic” to sample. Yet there was no such debate with this year’s “Bars into Captions,” in which Takeoff sounds at home interpolating parts of Andre 3000’s bridge and hook from “So Fresh, So Clean” It’s a standout moment on Only Built for Infinity Links, the album he and Quavo released just 25 days before his death.
Helping trap music go mainstream is also a huge part of his legacy. It was the youngest Migo who reinvigorated the triplet flow after Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Three 6 Mafia popularized it 20 years prior. “He just played a song one day, and the flow was there. It was the triplets, and everyone went, what?” Ray G told me. The rest of Migos would follow his lead, and the group single-handedly introduced the triplet flow to a new generation of listeners. The world’s response felt just as immediate as Ray G’s. Snoop Dogg complained that all rap was sounding the same, though he clearly understood why: “It’s addictive, that shit will get you.”
That shit got us for nearly a decade thereafter and calling Migos the Beatles of our generation no longer felt like hyperbole: In 2017, “Bad and Boujee” became Migos’ first No. 1 hit (a song so addictive Donald Glover dedicated time during his big Golden Globes acceptance speech to thank the group for making it), and their triplet flow—now universally known as the “Migos Flow”—was embraced by the pop world. Language proved to be no barrier for Migos’ influence: Even BT and BLACKPINK (on their hit “DDU-DU DUU-DU”) copped the flow.
Christina Lee
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