She’s also available for wedding remixes, Bar Mitzvah remixes…
[Video][Website]
[5.75]
Megan Harrington: Unfortunately, this is August Alsina’s song. And he is boring. Nicki gives him better than he deserves, a verse that simmers with despair. She maintains the song’s plaintive heartbreak, but given that the theme is such a non-starter in Alsina’s hands, I’d prefer a verse in character as the girl who broke his heart.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Bold choice for Minaj to hold out for more — a deviation from Alsina’s theme, but she packs more feeling in her few sung lines than his entire Auto-Tuned shrug of a performance. He’s gotta know it, too: why else leave in her laughter and helicopter noises?
[5]
Anthony Easton: What will it take to have a Nicki Minaj album of torch song standards? The rapping here is tight and adroit as it always is, but the hints of heartbreaking singing make me want to hear her do 90 minutes of historically minded heartbreak.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: The best single yet from August Alsina, who’s got the voice of an angel and the loins of the devil, apparently. And what’s wrong with that? This isn’t particularly trap&B and certainly isn’t EDM&B but, refreshingly, straight-up, modern, young R&B, which there isn’t enough of these days. I mean, I’m too old to “party till I can’t,” but if I was 20 years younger, sure. And Nicki chimes in with a few bars up to her standards (that I wish went on longer).
[6]
Crystal Leww: Alsina’s underrated and overlooked Testimony is an earnest R&B album that goes much deeper than drugs, women, and the turn-up, so it’s ironic that its singles so far have leaned so heavily on that side of Alsina’s discography, from the wavy “Ghetto” to the boomin’ “Numb” to “No Love”. The production for “No Love” is luxuriously smooth like the rest of the album, no doubt thanks to the consistency that The Exclusives lend. Alsina plays a dude who seriously ain’t shit, but god, he sounds great, exactly like the ain’t shit dude who could ruin your life but still keep calling to hang out late at night. Surprisingly, Minaj lets herself play the girl who keeps falling for it, showing a little bit of vulnerability in the sung bits before flipping to a hard exterior in rap bits. It’s a simple appearance from her, but it works well with the song.
[7]
David Sheffieck: The concept of having Nicki drop a response verse — or more, a rejoinder — into August’s song is great. The execution is sadly lacking: Nicki’s isolated by being slotted so close to the song’s end, and it’s easy to check out between her trilling laughter at the start and when she actually starts singing. Aside from her appearance, though, this is smooth to the point of being forgettable.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: Sure, I’m a sucker for self-loathing romantic music, lush electro-R&B, and, well, Nicki Minaj. I don’t know if this kid has it in him to be a Ne-Yo or even a Trey Songz, but on the strength of this I’m extending him the benefit of the doubt.
[8]
Micha Cavaseno: Drumma Boy is arguably one of my favorite producers in modern music, and here you can hear his amazing instincts for unusual orchestration and synth washes that always made a crude button-masher like Mike Will seem idiotic in comparison. And here in such a dense cavernous environment of romance and light bouncing off of water, Nicki is inspired to bounce stylistically both in her singing and her rapping. It’s a shame it’s wasted on this hunchback. Alsina remains a void of charisma, talent, and reasons to exist in the industry. But thanks to the Sassiest Boy in America not named Ian Svenonius, we have this remix, so I guess even a crude clay amalgamation of the scraps of actual R&B stars from the last decade gets SOME things right.
[4]