“Calling” by Metro Boomin (ft. Swae Lee, NAV and A Boogie wit da Hoodie)
Metro Boomin is one of those types of producers who has proven popular and successful enough to headline tracks himself and regularly feature top-notch vocalists. For example, he’s billed as the main artist of this track, despite serving only as its producer and co-writer.
Furthermore, he is spearheading the entirety of the soundtrack to the 2023 movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, from which “Calling” is derived. Additionally, all three of the featured vocalists are well-known rappers.
Nav, who hails from Canada, is one of Metro’s most-regular teammates. In fact the two of them dropped an entire collaborative album in 2017 titled “Perfect Timing”.
As for A Boogie wit da Hoodie, the hip-hop artist from the Bronx, it’s been a minute since we heard from him. But that said, he has also dropped quite a few songs in the past with the support of Metro Boomin, as has Mississippi native Swae Lee, who may be considered the most popular of the trio of vocalists.
THE LYRICS
Judging by the nature of this song and its associated music video, Across the Spider-Verse may prove to be a lot more romance-oriented than Into the Spider-Verse. In the chorus, we witness Swae Lee crooning his willingness to ‘give his all’ in the name of ‘saving’ the addressee, his sweetheart.
And it reads as if the reason he is compelled to make such a statement is due to having cast her into some type of distressed state, i.e. feeling it is ‘his fault’ that she is so. Or as more deeply implied, after going about securing her love, Lee has failed in terms of treating his sweetheart properly.
So it is upon such a theme that the verses are set. In the first verse, Nav does a decent job of coming off as the penitent boyfriend, though he seems to harp more of the things he’s doing right than how he may have offended the addressee. And in the second verse, as held down by A Boogie, can be considered more detailed, albeit being a money-oriented passage, as he dedicates ample bars alluding to how he has cast his lady into a higher economic class.
So by the time all is said and done, the chorus is really important in terms of driving home the main point, that the vocalist is sorry for mistreating honeybun, as that idea is not as firmly established in either of the verses. Instead, the verses themselves have Calling sounding more like a standard love song.
“(Ooh-ooh-ooh)
Just to save you, I’d give all of me (Yeah)
I can hear you screamin’ out, callin’ me (Callin’ me)
It’s my fault, made you fall for me (Fall)
So to save you, I’d give my all (All)
Just to save you, I’d give all of me (All of me)
I can hear you screamin’ out, callin’ me (Callin’ me)
It’s my fault, made you fall for me (Fall for me)
So to save you, I’d give my all (All)”
THE TEAM BEHIND “CALLING”
Besides Metro Boomin, the other co-writers of this track are its three vocalists. The music video, which is animated and features characters from the animated Spider-Man movie franchise, was directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson. And apparently the soundtrack is being put out through Sony Music, with Sony Pictures Animation also being one of the production companies behind the film.
