10 Music Collaborations We Thought We'd Never See

Breezy and RiRi aren't the only ones we never expected to make a song together.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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This Monday, Rihanna celebrated born day No. 24 by releasing the remix for “Birthday Cake”—the 90-second banger from her latest album Talk That Talk. To the surprise of many the track featured an unlikely partner: Chris Brown—who returned the favor by having his ex-girl jump on his remix for "Turn Up The Music." But really it turned up the noise. Shock! Horror! Outraged open letters!

What Breezy did to RiRi years ago is no secret, and even though that whole awkward restraining order is now a thing of the past, their collaboration is an odd one to say the least. On the plus side, both tracks are legitimately dope.

The whole brouhaha got us thinking about other weird duets and features that made folks wonder WTF? Yes, Michael Jackson really did a song with Eddie Murphy, and even Jay-Z and Nas squashed their beef and hit the booth. Find out where Rihanna and Breezy’s “Cake” ranks on our list of 10 Music Collaborations We Thought We'd Never See....

Written by Brad Wete (@BradWete)

10. Joe Jonas f/ Lil Wayne “Just in Love” (2011)

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Album: Fastlife
Producer: Rob Knox
Label: Hollywood

Weezy proves time and time again that he'll perform with just about anybody if the beat is semi-tight and cash is right. Case in point: this collabo with Disney Channel escapee Joe Jonas. On this cookie-cutter remix, our favorite Martian spits a lackluster earthling verse. But hey, we're sure the check was out of this world.

9. Various rock and hip-hop acts (1993)

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8. LFO f/ M.O.P.'s "Life Is Good" (2001)

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Album: Life is Good
Producer: Kenny Gioia
Label: J Records

Based on the groups' names alone, somebody should have known this would be a bad pairing. There was never anything light (or “Lyte”) about the Mash Out Posse. The Brownsville, Brooklyn duo was and still is known for fight music. So hearing them on a happy track by the goofy trio just made us want to mash the Lyte Funky One out.

7. Eddie Murphy f/ Michael Jackson “Whatzupwitu” (1993)

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Album: Love's Alright
Producer: Eddie Murphy, Trenten Gumbs
Label: Motown

This is obviously a case of a friend calling in a big favor. Why else would The King of Pop get down on the woeful with a guy whose full-time hustle isn't music? Decades later, we're still wondering what was up with that.

6. Nelly and Tim McGraw's “Over and Over” (2004)

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Album: Suit
Producer: Jayson "Koko" Bridges
Label: Derrty/Universal

By 2004, Nelly was well established as a rapper who could switch hit as an R&B-type singer. Still, nobody expected the St. Louis spitter who gave us "Country Grammar" to scoop up country singer Tim McGraw for this flowing slow jam. Even crazier? The song was a hit, making it to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

5. Joe Budden f/ Game “The Future” (2008)

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Album: Padded Room
Producer: Fyu-chur
Label: Amalgam Digital

Joey Jumpoff must have been feeling froggy when he leapt into a battle with The Game's erstwhile G-Unit family. But it wasn't really a surprise since both Budden and Game spent a good portion of their respective careers beefing with numerous artists (and occasionally, even video models). Years later, after Game left (or got booted from) 50's crew, he reached out to smooth things out.

After repeated texts and voicemails, Joey called Game back and it eventually led to “The Future,” the lead single off Joey's Padded Room. Unfortunately, the song was a lackluster club effort and not the lyrical showdown you'd expect from the two. Still, we're glad two guys best known for their knucklehead antics did the mature thing for once and put the past behind them.

4. Wale f/ Kid Cudi “Focused” (2011)

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Album: Ambition
Producer: Kore
Label: Warner Bros/Maybach Music Group

Wale and Kid Cudi started off as friends. But after a feud fueled by jealousy and misunderstandings, Cudi dropped a classic diss in a Complex cover story, letting Wale know that “we don't fuck with you musically.”

So it came as a big surprise when the two jumped on the phone and ironed out their differences a few months later. The result was this woozy single from Folarin's sophomore album, Ambition. Good to see these guys on the same page again.

3. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube “Natural Born Killaz” (1994)

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Album: Heltah Skeltah
Producer: Dr. Dre
Label: Death Row/Interscope

When Cube dropped “No Vaseline,” a scathing 1991 diss record wishing that his former N.W.A. brothers would take a rough one in the backside, the idea of him ever working with any of them again seemed like a dead issue.

Little did we know that Dr. Dre would soon be on his way out of the crew, too (apparently Cube wasn't the only one getting iced out of paychecks). When Cube and the good doctor reconnected the result was gangsta rap at its finest. Too bad the Heltah Skeltah Dre-Cube collab album it was supposed to be appear on was scrapped.

2. Nas f/ Jay-Z "Black Republicans" (2006)

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Album: Hip-Hop is Dead
Producer: L.E.S.
Label: Def Jam

On "Takeover" Jay did his best to bring Nas's career to an end. On “Ether” Nas said Jay used his lips to perform oral sex—on men. Make no mistake, the Jay vs. Nas battle was a no-holds-barred lyrical war. And then somehow, the whole thing was swept under the rug.

All it took was one good pow-wow for two of rap's finest to realize it was time to move on. Crushed by the weight of their fans' expectations, this highly anticipated collabo was a bit underwhelming—but it still goes down in history.

1. Rihanna f/ Chris Brown "Birthday Cake" (2012)

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Album: Talk That Talk
Producer: Da Internz, The-Dream
Label: Island Def Jam

Three years after the most infamous case of domestic violence in pop music history, who would have thought that the girl with the bruised-up face would invite the man who laid hands on her to sing on her track?

Maybe the relationship was sweeter than we thought. Maybe they're still sweet on each other. In fact they dropped not one but two remixes—his “Turn Up the Music” and her “Birthday Cake,” both of them shimmering with sexual energy.

Judging by the sound of these tracks, Breezy and RiRi missed each other very much. And though both songs are musically on point, why the two would launch themselves back into the gauntlet of media scrutiny remains a head-scratcher. On second thought, they've got the whole world talkin that talk about them. Maybe there's a method to these kids' madness.

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