The Best Features on Metro Boomin's 'Not All Heroes Wear Capes'

From 21 Savage's ASMR bars on "Don't Come Out The House" to Kodak Black crooning on "No More," Metro Boomin's new album is full of features. Here are the best.

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Image via Getty/Roy Rochlin

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Seven months after announcing his “retirement from rap,” Metro Boomin returned this week with a star-studded new album, Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Turning to his favorite collaborators, Metro filled the tracklist with all the faces you might expect on a project like this: 21 Savage, Travis Scott, Gucci Mane, Young Thug, Drake, Offset, and more. But who had the best feature? Was it Travis Scott’s bouncy verse on the album's catchiest song, “Dreamcatcher”? Or 21 Savage’s ASMR bars on “Don’t Come Out The House”? Maybe Gunna’s splashy rhymes on “Space Cadet?” We ranked the top five. Here are the best features on Metro Boomin’s new album:

5. Kodak Black, "No More"

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Sad, existential, nothing-left-to-do-but-sing Kodak Black is the best Kodak Black. On “No More,” the rapper (who, it should be noted, is facing pending sexual assault allegations in South Carolina) shows a mournful side, and it comes out in full force from the very beginning of his verse. He’s exhausted, drugged out, and lonely—and you can feel all of that in his voice. “Nowadays, I’m doing Ectasy when I’m bored/I don’t even know who keep it real anymore,” his verse begins. It ends not much brighter: “I’m a zombie/I can’t heal my heartache.” It’s a bit of humanity on an album that oftentimes feels cold and distant. —Shawn Setaro

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4. Travis Scott, "Dreamcatcher"

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Travis Scott’s appearance on “Dreamcatcher” gives us the all clear to officially start referring to him as a renaissance man (at least when it comes to his vocals). We get the total La Flame Experience here: haunting, echo-y falsetto, heartbroken crooning, bouncy bars, and his quick legato flow to wrap things up. Thematically, it’s a little all over the place; he goes from needing face time (/FaceTime) with his lady to reflecting on his stubbornness (Taurus antics) to comparing himself and his journey to Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst. Both vocally and lyrically, this Travis feature proves that he does, in fact, have the range. —Carolyn Bernucca

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3. 21 Savage, "10 Freaky Girls"

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On “10 Freaky Girls,” 21 Savage is equal parts comedian and stuntman. Over a beat that begins and ends with samples of Patti Labelle’s R&B classic “If Only You Knew,” 21 takes the time to remind us why he’s one of the most entertaining (yet stone-faced) rappers in the game. In a matter of seconds, 21 manages to make four wildly varied pop culture references: Spongebob Squarepants (“In Bikini Bottom, I’m with Sandy”); revered black sitcom Moesha (“Moesha keep on drinking all the Brandy”); a 2012 song called “Mary Keisha Molly” by battle rapper Arsonal (“Keisha eat the molly like it's candy”); and WWE icon Randy “Macho Man” Savage (“Bodyslam a nigga like I'm Randy”). He sprints from there, changing up his energy and easing into a more aggressive delivery to let his opps know he’s not the one. Finally, the verse ends with his biggest flex in a while. A soliloquy: “You know, I was racing down the highway earlier today, riding down 20. I happened to see a nigga I robbed back in the day. You know what? He was happy to see me.” —Kiana Fitzgerald

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2. Gunna, "Space Cadet"

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Metro Boomin is a natural matchmaker when it comes to placing artists on his beats. But he really went dumb when he picked Gunna to be on “Space Cadet.” At this point, Gunna is the person you call up when you want your shit to sound astronomical, and he floats accordingly all over this track. The beat flips from sounding bright—like chirpy dashboard controls in a rocket—to a darker vibe, almost like someone accidentally hit an emergency button on said dashboard. Through it all, Gunna stays true to the tone and cadence that has made him one of rap’s most desirable features. By being himself, Gunna gifted Metro with one of the best moments on the album. —Kiana Fitzgerald

1. 21 Savage, "Don't Come Out The House"

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Less than 30 seconds into "Don't Come Out The House," 21 inexplicably switches up his flow and starts whispering about knives. It's a wild move. And it pays off. The album's most memorable moment on first listen, the whisper flow had people fantasizing about 21's side career as an ASMR YouTuber as soon the project hit Spotify. In 2018, if your song turns into a meme within an hour of its release, you're doing something right. This verse is more than jokes, though. As we've come to expect whenever he gets his hands on a Metro Boomin beat, 21 Hefner follows the whispers by ripping through a couple menacing verses full of quotable one-liners. If this album taught us anything, it's that the world needs another Metro-produced 21 Savage project as soon as possible. —Eric Skelton

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