This type of posturing has largely inoculated Drake from serious criticism despite his close personal and professional relationship with the rapper Baka Not Nice (who pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman, and whose human-trafficking charges were dropped when the alleged victim didn’t want to testify). The record, studded with thinly veiled misogyny, cemented the Canadian rapper’s position as an archetypal Nice Guy it insisted on the complexity of his emotions and the ultimate goodness of his moral fiber. On Scorpion, Drake confirmed the rumor and rapped several discomfiting lines about having fathered a child with the former adult-film actor Sophie Brussaux. “We text-we just texted each other the other day and he was like ‘I miss you so much,’ and I was like ‘I miss you more.’” She added that he gives her advice about boys.īrown’s comments, which she later insisted were evidence of a completely normal friendship, followed a rather strange summer for the rapper, whose June album Scorpion was marred partly by the Pusha T–driven reveal of Drake’s secret son, Adonis. I met him in Australia and he’s honestly so fantastic, and a great friend, a great role model,” Brown, then 14, said. Last September, weeks before his 32nd birthday, Drake made headlines when the Stranger Things actor Millie Bobby Brown told Access Hollywood the pair have a close friendship.
(Drake has said the allegations of rape, and of pregnancy, were false and initially filed a fraud lawsuit against the woman.) Hip-hop media have reported the $350,000 settlement paid to her as Drake being “ off the hook,” or as a matter of salacious gossip. Earlier this summer, a young woman in New York reportedly filed a grievance against her own attorney, whom she alleges worked against her best interests after she hired him to represent her in a sexual-assault case against Drake.
CHRIS BROWN END OF THE WORLD SONG SERIES
It may be tempting to write the collaboration off as a purely commercial decision, but “No Guidance” marks the latest in a series of dubious ethical choices Drake has made in both his music and his personal dealings. Drake has very publicly declared his love for Rihanna in choosing to collaborate with Brown, he now publicly aligns himself with the man who battered her. This approach to coverage fails to account for the gravity of either men’s actions in the lead-up to the alleged fight and in the time since. Already, the video is being framed as a kind of lighthearted reconciliation gesture between the two men, who both dated the Bajan singer and reportedly fought each other in 2012. The long-teased project, so lengthy and overproduced as to seem inspired by the work of Quentin Tarantino, marks Drake’s first official one-on-one collaboration with the man who famously assaulted Rihanna. The commercial success of a glorified You Got Served remix is hardly surprising in 2019.īut the project’s musical vacuity is matched only by the curious obscenity of its existence. “No Guidance” is a paint-by-numbers modern R&B track: Start with an effusive Drake compliment, end with a thirsty Brown yodel. 1 on YouTube’s R&B Hotlist, and its Trending list for all music. On this algorithmic level, it has already succeeded: Remixed images of the dance battle that erupts between the two men have indeed gone viral.
Suffice it to say, the answer is not “Aubreezy.” The pair’s new music video is a work of staggering cynicism-seemingly tailor-made, as many Drake productions are, to produce a wealth of memes. Then, too, the caption was a rather arrogant reference to working together: “Best Duo or Group goes to … ” (The caption-“2019 cookup … Aubreezy”-involved a cringeworthy portmanteau of his given name, Aubrey, and Brown’s nickname.) He’d also shared images of the pair palling around at his birthday party last October, the same month he invited Brown onstage to perform with him.
Last week, Brown tweeted a photo of the two with the caption “Somethings coming.” Drake most recently posted images of the duo partying to his Instagram in January. The two had been teasing the arrival of this collaboration for at least a whole human gestation period. Last Friday, the R&B singer Chris Brown released the music video for his newest song, “ No Guidance,” an aptly titled nine-minute work featuring the rapper Drake.