Five Best Rapper Remixes of Lorde’s “Royals”

There's nothing more street than deciding to remix a pop single by a 16-year-old girl from New Zealand, right? That must be why so many MCs have recently decided to do just that, putting their own touch on "Royals," the number-one hit by Kiwi singer Lorde. The song's buttery beat could also have something to do with it, but we've got a feeling Rick Ross has always had an infinity for New Zealand pop music.

We decided to put together a "best-of" list of the remixes. Check it out after the jump.

Raekwon

Rae chooses to rap the whole time about a lot of the things -- money, alcohol, gun clips -- that Lorde actually disregards on the song's original chorus. The Wu-Tang MC could be making a critique on the original, but the fact that he spends his version's intro talking about banana walnut pancakes and trying to remember some movie he forgot probably tells you that he doesn't really pay attention to that stuff.

D-Pryde

Canadian rapper D-Pryde makes a good decision here and doesn't incorporate Lorde's original vocals into his remix; his high-pitched voice would have sounded pretty jarring next to her velvety hum. He makes another good decision by incorporating a bunch of shots of cats in this video. Not enough cats in hip-hop.

Rick Ross

Ross is such a boss that he decided to drop a barely-40-second verse on this and call it a remix. The Maybach Music head honcho pretty much lets the song go along as normal and then kind of pops up out of nowhere, briefly spitting his per-usual brand of smack before disappearing as quickly as he appeared. It could be argued that the woman who does the Maybach Music drop -- you know, the "M-M-M-Maybach music" sound  -- gets more shine than Ross here.

Traphik

Give it up to Long Beach MC Traphik for being the only rapper to remix "Royals" and keep its original message. Extra props to him for cleverly inserting the line "only Lorde knows" into one of his verses. Less props for the tricycle in the video.

Papoose

If there was ever something to scare Lorde from coming to America, it'd probably be Papoose's newest mixtape cover. That aside, Papoose uses her "we don't care" lyric to give some thought-provoking social commentary. We're a little surprised that Pap didn't use the track to diss Lorde, as he's kind of been dissing everyone as of late.