CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEO NOBODY CAN (EXTENDED VERSION) CHRIS BROWN AND LIL' WAYNE MUSIC VIDEO I CAN ONLY IMAGINE (EXTENDED VERSION) CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEO INTERNATIONAL LOVE (JUMP SMOKERS CLUB MIX) (VJ TONY VIDEO MIX) CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEO INTERNATIONAL LOVE (JUMP SMOKERS RADIO EDIT) CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEO DON'T JUDGE ME (DAVE AUDE REMIX).LIL' WAYNE MUSIC VIDEO BLOW THE WHISTLE - I AM NOT MY HAIR - GIMME THAT CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEO AS YOUR FRIEND (EXTENDED VERSION) CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEO YO (EXCUSE ME MISS).CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEO SHORTIE LIKE MINE Young Thug, missing the point entirely, plays the song differently, fully coveting the way of life that Brown is questioning. Granted, he does so on his knees trying to win a woman back, but still, it is a severe U-turn. And after half an album of womanizing, Chris Brown comes up for air just long enough to disavow the entire thing: “Poppin’ bottles in the club/Fuckin’ models, doin’ drugs/And I can’t do this anymore/I feel like an animal,” he cries. Songs about being too wasted (“Undrunk”) and about not being wasted enough (“No Such Thing”) cancel out. But there aren’t many songs that really sell the Playboy Mansion debauchery they’re aspiring to. Thug and Brown find common ground in the cut-the-line VIP lifestyles they lead, how that celebrity gets them laid (often), and the nature of their stroke games (always great, apparently). These two just don’t have any chemistry at all on “She Bumped Her Head,” Brown sounds like he’s encroaching on Thug and Gunna’s space, trying to squeeze himself into a role likely meant for Lil Baby. But his performances here are just flat and spiritless, paling in comparison to the no-holds-barred crooning of his “singing album” Beautiful Thugger Girls. When Thug is locked in, as on the Swae Lee duet “Offshore,” he sounds like he could make all the chairs swivel on The Voice or pull a T-Pain at the Tiny Desk moment. Nor does his proximity to Brown push him to deliver on his singing. Even if the point of this project is simply to kill time, listening shouldn’t feel like a waste of time. These are “nothing else to do” bars without real inspiration. (He was spotted shooting hoops with Brown the day before they announced the tape.) He is so prolific and explosive that it’s easy to imagine a lot of his best rapping happening like this, but his verses and hooks here are aimless in an idle sort of way. Roping Thug into Chris Brown’s world of frictionless songcraft limits the possibilities for what the rapper can do he’s rarely seemed as bored as he does on “Trap Back.” Thug says he recorded his verses in a single day honestly, it sounds like it. Young Thug, for his part, sounds jaded and disengaged. The two of them don’t share any meaningful connection, and they mostly come across as self-indulgent. He is an incompatible, and in some cases unwelcome, partner for rap’s mischievous trickster god-indeed, someone’s already made a version where he is entirely cut out of the tape. Brown is a deposed R&B king-turned-heel whose continued hitmaking is offset by his inability to grow or show restraint, in his music or in his life. Young Thug teaming with Chris Brown doesn’t have the same upside. They were two of rap’s preeminent talents in their primes, independent but together. On Rich Gang Tha Tour, Part 1, he and Rich Homie Quan formed an unlikely yin-yang duo that seemed linked even when unyoked, and even though he often lacks chemistry with frenemy Future, their collaborative tape, Super Slimey, was still like watching two sluggers at a home run derby bat flipping every time they go yard. Thug is no stranger to this kind of project. To work with Brown, Thug must sacrifice a ton of what makes him special and engaging. Thug is at the height of his success and near the peak of his powers. Brown, while still commercially viable, has been slumping creatively. The title implies a meeting of the minds and a marrying of their styles, yet this is a clear mismatch. It’s hard to imagine it existing in a world less dystopian than the one we’re in now.
Of the many strange pop-culture artifacts to emerge from quarantine, a collaboration between Young Thug and Chris Brown probably falls higher on the plausibility index than Beyoncé shouting out OnlyFans or the name X Æ A-12, but their new mixtape, Slime&B, still feels beyond explanation.