Rihanna’s on-again/off-again sidepiece maybe-boyfriend definitely boyfriend is one of hip-hop’s most intriguing figures for the way he blends discordant qualities into something that would work for no one else. He’s the geek as wannabe gangsta who lets you see right through the performance, and still somehow wins cred points. He’s the thoughtful mama’s boy who rap-croons sweetly, but the content of his lyrics is more often than not filled with scaldingly retrograde gender and sexual politics. He’s authentically inauthentic, pulling on poses and slipping into badly rendered patois that no one calls him on. He makes corniness work for him, to the point that he’s an inexplicable sex symbol.
The best part of Drake’s 12-minute video for “Child’s Play,” co-directed by him and Carlos “Spiff TV” Suarez, is Tyra Banks as the shrewish, put upon girlfriend who drops the f-bomb and smushing cheesecake in Drake’s face in the middle of a date at the Cheesecake Factory. It’s a stereotypical figure who only works here because it’s Tyra playing her. The character’s loud outburst and dramatic exit are the prologue to Drake posting up in a strip-club setting where he lip-synchs the track while making it rain, and then also tries to mean mug with his boys in the club parking lot. Corny? Absolutely. Just don’t even try to fight it, though.
Top photo is a still from Drake’s “Hotline Bling.”
