There's some good pop music around at the moment! Well there always is really, among the endless churning out of tripe (which I think is probably necessary to turn up the gems) but there's at least two tracks around at the moment which are totally rockin, the first being Tinie Tempah's Pass Out which I correctly predicted would be huuuuuge (at this point I'm retiring from the chart predicitons business with a 100% success rate). The second is Rude Boy by Rihanna - I've never been a fan of her previous stuff but that hook is just pure wickedness. Seems like everyone and his dog has done a remix (my dog is in the studio right now) - here's a little selection:

Heavy dancehall / reggaeton grind: Rihanna & Agent Sasco - Rude Boy Remix (usershare link). I think Agent Sasco replies "like a bus" to Rihanna's "is you big enough?" - that's pretty big

Bleepy IDMesque dancehall: Rihanna - Rude Boy - Murlo Remix (via Palms Out

More after the jump...

2K jumps on the beat with some Swahili rapping: Rihanna & 2K - Rude Boy Remix (via Get Mziki) - especially interesting because he seems to have taken the vocal and the instrumental separately and slightly detuned them to achieve that off-key-ness that a lot of African hip hop has (to my ears at least).

Mental Barefoot remix by Sterotyp (via Generation Bass):

Stereotyp / whos your rude boy remix by stereotyp ©

Chino voices the riddim: Chino - Burn Dem - King Jabbi remix (Rude Boy riddim) (mediafire link)

Man that's a whole lotta rudeboy action