The viral track “No Guidance” is a paint-by-numbers modern R&B download that’s strongly infused with Drake’s commercially radio-friendly success with the added glorification of nightclub violence thanks to historical, not-so distant-headlines between the pair.

 

“No Guidance” is a lengthy and overproduced slice of replay whose mv (music video) will seem familiar to anyone that’s savvy with the work of Quentin Tarantino. It blends the genres, sublimely injecting real time dramas into its proceedings with jovial dialogue that trundles along with no urgency for getting to the point, while still tripping on acid. This one-on-one collaboration, both of whom dated the iconic singer and all-round business mogul Rihanna, cashes in on their out-of-the-studio beef but fails to account for the gravity of either man’s actions in the lead-up to the infamous predawn brawl that saw Drake rejecting a peace offering from Brown, a $2,000 bottle of Ace of Spades champagne, before bottles soared through the celebrity-studded venue, leaving the crowd bloodied and covered in glass grenades.

 

The collaboration, which has Drake publicly aligning himself with the man who assaulted their ‘ex’, marks yet another dubious ethical choice for the singer, who tries his hardest to inject a humorous approach to the mv, inserting himself as the good guy, with comically bad timing. Brown, on the other hand, does Brown, a floor-cranking dance floor powerhouse that puts Michael Jackson to shame. It’s a clever mv and has certainly helped the titans of the soundscape maintain streaming views, but it struggles to deliver anything new in the way of progressing its genre.

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Another, hollow some may say, gripe I have with the track is that Drake seems to be only driven by an interest in rehabilitating Brown’s batsh*t crazy bad boy image, and in doing so he gives Rihanna the middle finger, eventually failing to serve people caught in the cross fire any homemade humble pie. Consequently the duo only stoke the fire of the so-called ‘buried’ feud all over again, maximising gossip columns’ Google searches for what caused the beef in the first place and creating the perfect earning environment to walk a woman’s pain right to the bank.

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