ReMix:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "Princess Ruto" 3:05

Long before The Shape of Water flooded its way into inter-species Oscar history, Link & Ruto were exploring Hylian-Zora feels; Smooth4Lyfe (Joey Ofori) lays down the former's inner thoughts on this smooth hip-hop/r&b vocal jam, off of Video Game Rapper:

"This song called "Princess Ruto" is a love song dedicated to Princess Ruto from Legend of Zelda. It is sung from Link's perspective. It's a smooth R&B track with a good bassline!"

I'll second that; Larry had some smallish nitpicks but enjoyed the overall:

"Onto some small negatives first: During the chorus at :47, I thought the instrumental writing outside of the Zora theme got washed out and essentially had no presence, so the mixing's not ideal, but I did pick up on those parts being there; same with some clicking SFX around 1:12 and bell or xylo-type tones around 1:20, where the parts barely register and would have made nice accents had they stood out. The closing piano at 2:47 was thin and fake-sounding, so a ding there (c'mon, Joey!), but it was brief, and still a good way compositionally to end the piece. But those are smaller things that don't take away from the big picture, and none of those meaningfully hurt this from a production standpoint.

Onto what I enjoyed, first, the source tune's ever-present as the instrumental. Meanwhile, Smooth had some very nice-sounding padded vox and subtle SFX during the Zora theme intro, and once the vocals started, the pads and vocal warbling effects do a very nice job of pushing the underwater imagery. People who may normally frown on vocals with VGM arrangements may enjoy that the lyrics are oriented to the game. I can't say enough how Smooth's vocal delivery had great energy, and I thought the bashfulness of the lyrics was cute and fun. This is lighthearted and embraces it. Joey expanded upon the Zora theme nicely through this approach, and had some good dynamic contrast with the raps vs. the choruses vs. the spoken word sections. I recommend everyone check out Smooth's full album, Video Game Rapper, for more good stuff like this!"

Really mellow, chill, laid-back vibe, and I liked the variety of having rapping, singing, and talking in the same track; Joey also knows how to add dynamic FX on his vocal parts, and the delays & other DSP add an extra dimension that makes the whole thing swim. Watery choral pads and iconic rising harp lines seal the deal, and the whole concept comes together nicely; excellent stuff!