Rita Ora guest features on Iggy Azalea’s new song, Black Widow, and when it comes to female pop powerhouse collaboration videos, it’s a hell of a lot more Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé than Shakira ft. Rihanna.
Taking its cues from Quentin Tarantino films like Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, it features actual Tarantino film actor Michael Madsen. You might remember him better from his more recent role, playing, um… himself in Celebrity Big Brother.
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He plays a gross old man who winds up our leading ladies by being controlling, pervy and aggressive, getting in a big fight over how melted his cheese is on a sandwich. So Rita and Iggy set out to destroy him, and, in homage to Uma Thurman’s character in the epic revenge films, they don leather catsuits and very long samurai swords. Yeah, there are moments in there solely to get men crossing their legs in pre-boner cringe, but did we mention the song is an absolute banger?
Iggy spits out raps so elaborate and fast-paced that we’re not even going to bother trying to transcribe them, and Rita sings, ‘I’m gonna love ya until you hate me’, all over a plinky-ploppy hip hop melody, soaring synths just at the right bits and booming throbs of bass, which drops out every now and then to give Iggy’s rattle-rap some extra spotlight.
Just like the video for Gaga and Beyoncé’s Telephone, Black Widow totally vibes off of that old Tarantino story of the scorned woman getting her revenge, and other victims beyond Madsen include T.I. – remember, he was the guy who rapped in last year’s Blurred Lines that he’d like to ‘tear your ass in two’? – and Paulie from The Sopranos.
Some might draw massive conclusions about this by saying that Rita’s sending ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris a message through this song. See, he blocked her from performing her song I Will Never Let You Down at the Teen Choice Awards because he owns the rights to the song.
She told Ryan Seacrest’s radio show: ‘I was supposed to perform. But [Calvin] wrote and produced the song... he owns the rights to it... so [he] has to approve anything TV-wise... He didn’t approve the Teen Choice Awards.’
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And she didn’t even say it in a bitter way, prefacing her comment with: ‘He wrote and produced the song. I mean he’s an incredible songwriter, I’m never gonna disregard his talents, you know he’s incredible.’
Calvin then hit back by tweeting:
However, for all his petulance and mirth, by the looks of this video, Rita’s got the last laugh. It’s not that life will reflect this artful promo and result in Rita lopping off Calvin’s head with a five-foot sword, it’s simply that with bangers like Black Widow, Rita’s career should come along leaps and bounds, regardless of Calvin’s stranglehold on her back catalogue.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.