"Cash In Cash Out" on the POW Best Rap Songs of 2022

21. Pharrell Williams feat. 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator - “Cash In Cash Out”

A four-count overture echoes over the hills and valleys as woodland creatures greet the dawn with stank faces: Pharrell is making rap beats again. After producing half of fellow Virginian Pusha-T’s latest coke rap opus, the superstar dropped “Cash In Cash Out” in June to tease next year’s Phriends compilation. The production is so spare it’s impossible to timestamp to a particular era, just compressed drums, a wordless vocal sample, and 808s gigantic enough to test the limit of car stereos worldwide.

The two young stars on “Cash In Cash Out” treat the skeletal beat like a royal fanfare and deliver two mammoth 40-bar verses of gloating. 21 Savage brings the above-it-all cool of Pharrell’s Clipse compatriots. He shops for Richard Milles like a teen scrolling through Depop and sends side chicks home in Porsches, but he knows he could still make a million in the streets even if he had to start over in a foreign country, a pointed flex from someone who has topped the charts while his immigration status remains in legal limbo.

Tyler, The Creator earned his place on the song via voice memo when his inspiration-turned-collaborator asked who else might fit the track, and he attacks the beat with a fanboy’s vigor. He isn’t just rich, he’s cool like a fur trapper hat on the beach and established enough to turn down arena shows if the stages don’t match his artistic vision. “Cash In Cash Out” is an inspired cross-generational collaboration in a year full of them (see also: DJ Premier feat. Slick Rick and Lil Wayne, DJ Muggs feat. Scarface and Freddie Gibbs) with a hook brilliant-stupid enough to crack Top 40. Money can’t buy taste, but after two decades of hits, Pharrell happens to be rich in both.