Taylor Swift’s remix of her song “Karma,” featuring Ice Spice, was the most anticipated track on the new deluxe edition of her “Midnights” album, titled “Midnights: Til Dawn.” The song was released on May 26 along with an official music video that featured the increasingly popular rapper. Swift revealed the new tracks and deluxe album two days prior via Twitter.
Yet, “Karma” was a fine track on its own. In the original song, “Karma” is referred to as a person, a god, a cat, a thought, and her boyfriend. These themes make sense as she is a cat lover and also pays tribute to her ex-boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn as she sings “Karma is the guy on the screen / Coming straight home to me.”
Taylor has been obsessed with the concept of karma ever since the start of her career. She always refers to people getting what they deserve due to their actions. More specifically, other artists who she has had infamous feuds with such as Kanye West and Katy Perry.
Ice Spice is a rising artist and everyone is trying to get some type of collaboration with her after her features in PinkPantheress and Nicki Minaj’s songs. While the collaboration seemed like it would work on paper, the actual track underperformed.
The feature felt like Ice Spice wanted to do more. The track stars Ice Spice’s “girlboss” vibe insofar as she always loves to flex and hype herself up in her own songs.
The rapper has her own verse and uses her classic sound and words: “Grahh” and “Damn.” This flow and cadence makes the Ice Spice collaboration seem original and authentic for the remix.
“Karma is your chеck’s ’boutta bounce (Damn) / Karma is a fire in your house (Grrah) / And she ’boutta pop up unannounced (Like) / And she never leavin’ you alone (Damn),” she sings at the beginning of her verse. The Ice Spice verse reinforces the concept of “Karma” as an untouchable hero.
For the rest of the song, Ice Spice is whispering words and repeating Taylor’s lyrics in the background. This makes her seem more like a supportive side character and ultimately wasted her potential. The track comes across as a last-minute decision formulated by both artists’ teams. This is not uncommon, but this comes with the risk of making mediocre music. It is unfortunate because both artists are amazing in their respective fields and genre but this track was not the best creative move by them.
Ice Spice reiterates that “Karma” is a baddie, yet Swift had already claimed that. This version has more of a Gen-Z twist on it as Ice Spice is becoming more of a voice for the generation.
The remix wasn’t like the PinkPantheress collab where Ice Spice just made “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” better than the original solo. Or where Minaj added more exhilaration onto Ice Spice’s “Princess Diana” single. Ice Spice’s collaborations had synergy between both collaborators. Her verse blended incredibly with PinkPantheress as they both claim how toxic relationships can be with boys as females. “Princess Diana” was crafted for Minaj’s presence and existence as both rappers have the same self-indulgent vibe within the song.
“Karma’s” new remix is reminiscent of Lana Del Rey’s original track “Snow on the Beach” where Del Rey’s is credited as a feature but her voice is hardly heard on the original “Midnights” album that was released in October.
In all, the song does enhance the album’s popularity because of Ice Spice’s current public admiration, but it seemed more like a public relations stunt on behalf of both artists. I don’t see Ice Spice and Swift doing another collaboration in the future but I know they will thrive on their own. The collaboration was a disappointment, to say the least, and Ice Spice did not elevate the track.
Verdict: “Karma” was better off without Ice Spice. It was a catchy pop song already, but collaborations seem to be everything to artists nowadays even if they aren’t for the better.
