I'm Different (Jazz Cover)

There's a man at a piano bar. The room is almost empty. It's past midnight. He leans into the microphone and, in the softest, most devastated voice imaginable, tells you: "I'm different, yeah, I'm different."

He means it. He has never meant anything more.

This week's entry in the Silky Voice, Gutter Lyrics series takes 2 Chainz's 2012 trap anthem "I'm Different" — a titanically confident brag record about convertibles, designer sneakers, and general superiority — and performs it verbatim as a late-night jazz ballad. Brushed snare. Walking upright bass. A muted trumpet that enters halfway through like a friend who came to sit with you in your sadness. A man with a feather-soft voice confessing his uniqueness to nobody in particular at 58 BPM.

The original is a floor-shaker. The cover is a 2am internal monologue.

"Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing" lands here with the weight of a man who has driven very far with the windows down and isn't sure why. "Middle finger up to my competition" is delivered so gently it sounds like a benediction. By the second chorus, "I'm different" has accumulated the emotional texture of a man who has been told he is difficult to love.

He is not being ironic. That is the joke.

Source: 2 Chainz — "I'm Different" (2012, Official Clean Music Video) • Lyrics from Genius

[Chorus] I'm different, yeah, I'm different I'm different, yeah, I'm different I'm different, yeah, I'm different Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing Middle finger up to my competition I'm different, yeah, I'm different

[Verse 1] Pull up to the scene, but my roof gone When I leave the scene, bet your boo gone 2 Chainz, but I got me a few on Everything hot, skip lukewarm And me and you are cut from a different fabric Look back at it, look back at it Gave her the wrong number and a bad addy You ain't going nowhere like a bad navi

[Chorus] I'm different, yeah, I'm different I'm different, yeah, I'm different I'm different, yeah, I'm different Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing Middle finger up to my competition I'm different, yeah, I'm different

[Verse 2] 2 Chainz, got your girl on the celly And when I get off the celly, I made her meet at the telly Hair long, money long Me and broke folks, we don't get along I paid a thousand dollars for my sneakers 'Ye told you, a 100K for a feature Yeah, it's going down, so get up Might valet-park a Brinks truck

[Chorus] I'm different, yeah, I'm different I'm different, yeah, I'm different Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing Middle finger up to my competition I'm different, yeah, I'm different I'm different, yeah, I'm different