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Maroon 5’s “Don’t Wanna Know” Continues Kendrick’s Grand Tradition of Phoning It In on Pop Collaborations

INDIO, CA - APRIL 23: Rapper Kendrick Lamar performs onstage during day 2 of the 2016 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival Weekend 2 at the Empire Polo Club on April 23, 2016 in Indio, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella)

Get ready to hear “Don’t Wanna Know” everywhere. Maroon 5’s new single, which debuted last night, features the phrase “don’t wanna know” repeated many times, some True Romance marimbas, Adam Levine doing a vaguely Caribbean thing with his voice, and exactly 19 seconds of rapping from this era’s greatest hip-hop virtuoso, Kendrick Lamar.

The slight and sugary tune is actually the second Levine-Lamar collaboration on record, after The Lonely Island’s lovably loony “YOLO.” It also follows a couple of similarly bland pop collaborations from the rapper, with artists like Taylor Swift and Sia. Too bad Kendrick’s verse here makes his “Bad Blood” bars sound like “Rigamortis.”