 August Brown of the Los Angeles Times gave the song a negative review , commenting that " Kendrick Lamar somehow packs more personality into a halfhearted hook on ' Forbidden Fruit ' than Cole gets in the song " . Phillip Mlynar of Spin felt that " [ the song 's ] quirky bass line and warm @-@ keys motif are so recognizable that it 's a brow @-@ furrowing challenge to hear anything other than Q @-@ Tip and Phife 's original vocals in the space between the beat and the new raps . " Mlynar further stated that " Cole himself ( along with Kendrick Lamar 's guest spot ) ends up evaporating entirely — he 's upstaged by loftier artists who aren 't even there . " Contrarily , Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest expressed his appreciation for Cole 's production : " [ He ] didn 't like try to do what was already done . [ He ] brought other parts to the sample that you caught that I was like , ' Oh , nice ! ' " 
