“Let me see your phone…” Gotta love Nicki Minaj’s gall to have a verse about checking her boyfriend’s cell phone in a song that features Chris Brown.
The Young Money would-be pop-star and rapper combined with Brown for “Right By My Side,” another cut from “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded.” In addition to the socially repugnant pop star, Minaj also tapped another super-talent for the track, or at least the video: Nas.
The music video seemingly set up shop in the 1990s era of R&B, with Minaj’s slo-mo’ed long blonde locks and wack lounge wear, and the ever-lovely Nas sporting eyeglasses like he’s Nate from Boyz II Men (of course he was the cute one). Oh, a new car! Oh, a make-out session on a park bench! Kelis is somewhere, weeping and sharpening a blade.
This clip is thankfully much more cohesive than Nicki’s last, neon eyesore “Starships.” Where I take issue here, though, is that she spends about 75% of the time doing capital-S Serious acting for the VH1 crowd, and the rest of it goofing off. It’s one kind of comedy to watch Brown try to lip-sync to his auto-tuned solo, it’s another to perpetually act like its the end of a long day. The tail-end of the vid hints at a “Thriller”-like sequel, but I don’t feel like dancing.
But back to Brown… since I do not such job in hiding my disdain, I just want to point out this good Ebony article on “slut shaming” Rihanna, since that’s what he did in his “Theraflu” freestyle recently. Cut it out, guys. Really.
What do you think of the video?