Today’s theme is big new videos. What do you mean you weren’t all waiting for this one?

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[3.69]

Katherine St Asaph: Here’s some depressing quote: “‘I really wanted to be featured on it,’ [Rexha said,] ‘because, you know, I’ve been signed and dropped, and now signed a second time, so it’s been hard. What ended up happening was that it looked like a lot of names on the title, so they wanted to keep as many low features as possible.’” It’s a testament to how screwed up the industry’s level of respect is for (mostly female) vocalists versus (mostly male) producers, not to mention a huge ego blow, when your credit gets less play than Afrojack. Not to mention when your chorus gets mixing this bad. It could be worse — she could be the guys Alan Lomax recorded in prison. The rest is unsurprising: Nicki Minaj is more compelling rapping actual lyrics than ersatz PG-13 Ester Dean filler, Afrojack might actually have done nothing, and David Guetta, in sounding less predictable, has somehow become even more boring.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: “Hi, I’m David Guetta. Do you like _____? Then you’ll love ______ in my new single, ‘Hey Mama’!” Choose your favorite answer: 1) Moby’s 16-year-old album Play/the Alan Lomax sample 2) generic-sounding EDM vocals/Bebe Rexha’s initially-uncredited chorus (which is still the most energetic thing you’ll hear) 3) Nicki Minaj/her tepid “party-starting” rap, as if she’s auditioning for Black Eyed Peas
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: The inexplicable logic of sampling prison labor songs into this sort of bit of EDM pop of no real value is personally appropriate, as the industry’s attempts to convince me I should find significance in anything Bebe Rexha does, or that she is a more plausible artist than Ester Dean, are like a sense of entrapment from up-high. Afrojack is all out of steam, Nicki phones it in as best she can (which isn’t even as good as it used to be), and of course Guetta’s really just the name on the bill.
[2]

Mo Kim: “Restraint” is not a word in David Guetta’s vocabulary, but this throws so many different sounds together that the collective force is not unlike being body-slammed by a large inflatable object. Nicki Minaj acquaints herself with the swagger of a champion, weaving deftly in between rubbery synth horns and blunt-force beats.
[6]

Iain Mew: “Turn Me On” grew on me into something great, but that always had a nucleus of I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I excitement to build around. “Hey Mama” does have a pretty good Nicki rap and squawk, but David Guetta drowns it in horns, and its pretty indicative — his production as a whole highlights all the wrong vocal bits, and stifles momentum.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: It’s misleading to say everyone involved with this is being misused, when Afrojack’s presence at all is highly questionable and Bebe Rexha sounds best when nightcore-d. But Nicki Minaj is definitely phoning this in, and even David Guetta is capable of something more interesting.
[3]

Ramzi Awn: Rehashed though it may be, the hook is a sweet payoff for making it through “Hey Mama.”
[6]

Mark Sinker: “Yes, I’ll do the cooking” — OK, so now I want know can Nicki cook? And who would win the Hey Mama Come Dine with Me Special — Minaj, Guetta, Rexha or Afrojack? G is obsessed with molecular gastronomy and spills liquid nitrogen into his beard. A attempts frikandel, which he loves, but it looks really nasty and no one tries any. N cooks something her gran used to make back in Saint James; she gets grumpy when not everyone can take it this spicy. B arrives with a really nice clever mediterranean salad but by now everyone else is quarrelling and not paying attention. 
[6]

Will Adams: No one needed a club version of “Cater 2 U,” and yet here we are.
[3]

Rebecca A. Gowns: The first thing that comes to mind is Nina Simone’s “Be My Husband,” which was (co?)written by her husband at the time and borrowed significantly from Alan Lomax’s “Rosie” (the real sample here), which itself is a tune that has no doubt been passed down for much longer than that. There is something off-putting about this powerful refrain, and the usually powerful Minaj, being transformed into this odd ode to patriarchal order. The lyrics make me uncomfortable, and the sounds collide in an unpleasant way. The ladies are present and giving it their best shot, but I hope this one comes and goes quickly. Pure tinnitus, both aural and spiritual.
[2]

Crystal Leww: Bebe Rexha is quickly becoming a great, enviable pop hook writer after “The Monster,” “All Hands on Deck,” and now “Hey Mama.” Stylistically, she’s right at home on this Guetta and Afrojack produced EDM-banger, first really showing a real knack for it with Cash Cash and then later in her solo work. The initial lack of credits for her vocals is unforgivable; I know that the criticism of false, performative femininity has been levied at Rexha before, but she’s one of the best at it. “Hey Mama” swerves into the criticism, with Nicki spitting nothing but gendered devotion to her man and Rexha’s chorus rattling and howling in all its girly glory. “Hey Mama” doesn’t work without Rexha’s chorus; it’s what takes “Hey Mama” to outer space. The cruelest irony is listening to the chorus itself: “I wanna hear you calling my name like ‘HEY MAMAMAMA!’” For too long, Rexha was nameless on this, a track that could not exist without her, and replaced with the assumption of an interchangeable female vocal.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: David Guetta hits are so plentiful that the occasional one is literally forgettable. Without a worthwhile chorus or noise-based chorus replacement, this could well join “Little Bad Girl” in bearing that out. The all-round air of autopilot would be fine if the results were anything to speak of, but all it seems to have led to is an absent-minded failure to credit Bebe Rexha.
[4]

Alfred Soto: If Barack Obama were a tough wartime president, he’d order Special Forces into the studios where producer terrorists create these misbegotten things.
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