Friday, September 05, 2008

 

Break out the energy policy reggaeton

A bunch of crybaby bleeding heart musicians have been serving the McCain-Palin headquarters with a lot of cease-and-desist orders regarding the campaign's song selections.  Van Halen pitched a fit about McCain using former Crystal Pepsi theme song "Right Now," and now the ladies of Heart don't want Sarah Palin using "Barracuda."   While Van Halen actually did my boy John Sidney McHotness a big favor by preventing him from torturing us with Sammy Hagar's cheesetastic shitshow of a song, it's really too bad the Wilson sisters aren't Republicans.  "Barracuda" is a totally kick-ass song.

Anyway, now my officer and a hot piece and the lipstick-wearing pitbull are without music to play at their propaganda rallies, and it looks like they won't be able to jam to anything with copyrights owned by Obamaniacs.  Somehow, McCain and Palin will have to inspire their constituents without the invigorating melodies of Bruce Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, or Scarlett Johansson's Tom Waits covers.  They can kiss John Mellencamp's "Small Town" goodbye, as well as anything by Young Jeezy (although it's doubtful McCain would want to walk onstage to anecdotal tales about Jeezy DeNiro/Snowman Pacino customizing various luxury cars, evading law enforcement agents through judicious use of illegal machine guns, and the trials and tribulations of grinding at the trap anyway).  Christ, even Toby Fucking Keith is supporting Obama!   So much for lighting up the terrorists like the Fourth of July.  The McCain-Palin campaign is going to have to go for something out of the GOP jukebox. 

Unfortunately, that's pretty slim pickings.  I can't see the future executive branch of the American government getting to the White House by heralding their appearance with Jessica Simpson's cover of "These Boots are Made for Walkin'" or Heidi Montag's...whatever the hell Heidi sings when she's not creating drama with Lauren Conrad.  Therefore, from what I can tell, there's only one logical option: reggaeton singer and fervent McCain supporter Daddy Yankee.

If McCain's constituents can get past the frenetic dance beats that characterize the average Daddy Yankee song, the español-hablaing among McCain's campaign staff might actually notice that many of his themes are extremely relevant.  For example:

Though the Mad Max-meets-El Rápido y El Furioso video might mislead you to think this song is about some sort of guerilla army of video hoochies taking on a paramilitary force during some kind of tricked-out motorcycle race, "Gasolina" is really about the McCain-Palin energy policy! "Dame más gasolina!" definitely has a place as a catchphrase in this campaign. So what if (according to some message board on the always reliable internets, anyway) "gasolina" is actually Puerto Rican slang for semen? I guarantee that neither McCain or Palin know that. Get some Daddy Yankee to precede those hot-ass speeches they're giving!
  

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Friday, April 18, 2008

 

Daily Douchebag: Akon


Name: Aliuane Badara Thiam

DOB: April 30, 1973

Occupation: R&B singer, record producer, big old phony

Hometown: Dakar, Senegal

Current residence: Atlanta, Georgia

Douchebaggery: I never spent much time thinking about whether Akon's claims of being imprisoned for various crimes ranging from operating a car theft ring to illegal weapons possession to drug dealing were true.  Akon has a nice voice and he sounds sweet when he sings "I wanna fuck you."  I also figure that with a few exceptions, most of the dudes in R&B and hip-hop are embellishing a little when it comes to their criminal resumés.  For example, when I hear R. Kelly singing the hook for Young Jeezy's "Go Getta," I don't believe for a second that Kells is"trapping all day."  Robert Sylvester Kelly may be a R&B thug, but he's not taking a break from blessing the world with his mackadelic nightspot realness to sling crack on the street corner.  And I believe Lil' Wayne a lot more when he says things like "hoes kiss the dick with no mistletoes" over "I put 'em in ya head and watch the holes bleed."  In spite of his claims to the contrary, I don't think anyone actually believes that his tattooed teardrops represent three different lives that he's personally taken via homicidal means.  The only crimes he's committed are the ones he's routinely arrested for: rolling around with pounds of weed (literally), smoking the same in public, and enough Vicodin to supply every prescription pill-popper on "Intervention" for life.

Akon, however, has apparently been doing a lot of talking about how critical his past record of illustrious criminal exploits have directly influenced his music.  He even named his record label "Konvict" to demonstrate how critical his felonious history is to his art.  A recent investigation by The Smoking Gun, however, raises some issues about Akon's personal credibility.  As the author of the piece notes regarding his most recent album Konvicted, "Kontrived may have been a more accurate choice."

It seems Akon has made all sorts of claims in interviews, from being the "ringleader of a notorious car theft operation" specializing in exotic luxury vehicles to being a "champion" of prison fighting while doing a three-year sentence to "facing 75 years."  With the exception of a solitary reporter at the Washington Post, the media largely accepted Akon's criminal autobiography as fact until The Smoking Gun did some fact-checking and declared Akon "James Frey with catchy hooks and an American Music Award."  

In reality, Akon has only one felony conviction to his name (for gun possession), and apart from several months spent in the DeKalb jail for a stolen car charge he ended up getting three years probation for, he hasn't done any time.  In fact, he conceived his son in the middle of his supposed term.  

Akon has gone above and beyond to make himself seem like some kind of don of the urban underworld.  Much like Vanilla Ice before him who made claims of being stabbed in the ass during a gang altercation, Akon presumably felt that this would enhance his marketability.  He should have paid more attention to what happened to Vanilla Ice.  The false claims of being grievously injured during a gang turf war were the nail in that idiot's coffin.  Granted, Akon has produced far more in terms of hits than Vanilla Ice, but considering his outlandish fabrication of being a hardened criminal and maximum security prison veteran, I wonder how well his next album, Acquitted, will fare now that he's been outed as a total fake.  Now nobody will ever be able to listen to lyrics like "you know my pedigree, street dealer used to move 'phetamines" without a sarcastic eye-roll.  Then again, if nobody cares and Acquitted sells well, maybe I should think about marketing myself this way.

Here's my real autobiography:
I was born November 17, 1978 in Tacoma, Washington and raised in nearby Puyallup, in a house down the street from a trailer park and a mobile home dealership.  I attended private Catholic school for twelve years.  During this time my hobbies included writing, playing classical piano, and editing the school paper and literary magazine.  I received a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Smith College in 2000.  I worked for a small biotechnology company in Seattle for three years and drove a '94 Honda Civic.  I was then accepted into a Ph.D program at Columbia University, received two masters degrees, and expect to earn my doctorate in late 2008 or early 2009.  I love dogs, beer, sex, and football.  I have received only one criminal citation in my life (a misdemeanor "possession of drug paraphernalia" charge in South Dakota for having a pipe and half a joint in my car during a cross-country trek that amounted to no arrest and a fine of $250).

Here's my Akon autobiography:
I was born in 1985 in Tacoma and raised in a vile trailer park in Puyallup, where I began selling illegal firearms at a young age to my equally criminal neighbors.  My aptitude in science led to a productive career in clandestine methamphetamine production, so I dropped out of school to pursue riches via the only option available: mastery of the drug trade.  My shit was known as the purest tweak in all of Pierce County.  After dominating the local market for meth and stunting around town in a stolen Mercedes MacLaren purchased at Akon's infamous chop shop, I set my sights higher.  I expanded my portfolio of services to include illegal gun trafficking, money laundering, and interstate transportation of large quantities of marijuana.  This backfired after an arrest in South Dakota landed me in maximum security federal prison for five years.  While in prison, I was the head dyke in charge and quickly took control of the black market cigarette trade via my ability to beat everyone mercilessly.  Upon my release, I migrated east to make a national name for myself amongst the heavy-hitting underground crime syndicates.  In New York, I managed to use my prowess in the lab to sell black market illegal poliovirus and rhinovirus to terrorist and mercenary groups.  I also began peddling illegal pornography, set up a bootlegging operation, and set up a combination pimping and dogfighting business catering to Michael Vick, Pac Man Jones, Tank Johnson, Ray Lewis, and some of the NFL's most notorious criminals.  Today, I am considered a super-don and have several major crime families answering to me.  I expect that soon I will be the world's most powerful criminal.  And don't fuck with me, because I'm always walking around totally strapped.

Yeah, that's believable.  I bet I'm about to get a lot more blog traffic now that I've decided to start marketing myself as a hardened felon with a lengthy rap sheet rather than an upwardly mobile science nerd with a Chopin fetish and a lot of letters bestowed by fancy schools that I can put after my name.  

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Wednesday, January 17, 2007

 

What an inspiration

I love Jay "Young Jeezy" Jenkins almost as much as pepperoni pizza. In fact, I love Young Jeezy so much that when I was making a flyer for the Grad Student Organization party we threw a while back I was about THIS close to putting the angry snowman logo from his high fashion "Trap or Die" shirts on it.
However, I thought better when I reflected that a snowman with that cranky expression was probably not the way to get a bunch of science geeks to show up at our little Holiday Party, and furthermore, if anyone did get it, I might get in trouble for its obvious cocaine-related subtext. Granted, most of my fellow science indentured servants have no idea what "trapping" is, but nonetheless, I thought better of it and made my own wine-guzzling happy snowman logo instead. Anyway, I was looking at his MySpace profile and noticed something hilarious.

It seems that Young Jeezy is not satisfied being the undisputed king of the cocaine market in his neck of the woods, and wants to give back to his community. Specifically, he would like to inspire the youth of Metro Atlanta to reach for their academic dreams, by acting as some type of role model. Therefore, he is sponsoring an ESSAY CONTEST:

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Here are some instances of the excellent and inspiring example Young Jeezy is setting for the high school seniors of Hotlanta in his own words:

On mixing business with pleasure: "Jeezy like to drink, Jeezy like to smoke, Jeezy like to mix Arm and Hammer with his coke. Jeezy at the trap, Jeezy like to grind, Jeezy bout his paper, cause Jeezy like to shine"

On maintaining relationships with women: "I need a hoodie hoodie hood rat, she know where the cheese at, she bring it home to daddy, 'cause she know I needs it."

On plagiarism: "That's why these rap niggas take notes, recite my ad libs, borrow my quotes. Make me wanna IHOP a nigga, serve 'em with toast."

On success: "Trap all day, play all night, this is the life of a go getta."

On academic achievement: "No high school diploma, but I know math."

To demonstrate his mathematical prowess by solving probability equations: "Chances of gettin' rich like one in a million--nahh--more like two in a billion."

On chemistry: "Might cook it in the stove, might cook it in the microwave, either way it's gonna sell, I still weigh it on the scale."

Oh his masculinity: "I have a huge penis...jeah!"

On the birds and the bees: "Born in the field, I was raised in Atlanta. Pop bust a nut here so I was made in Atlanta."

On staying true to yourself in the face of adversity: "I'm-a stay thuggin' 'til the Feds come get me."

Don't get me wrong, because I'm absolutely not hating on Young Jeezy, and I completely enjoy his music and wish for his continued success (on a totally unrelated aside, I fully support what has obviously been a Herculean effort in the gym on his part; that motherfucker now actually has visible muscles as opposed to forearms that resemble fatty lamb shanks). I also acknowledge that I'm getting my Ph.D at an Ivy League school, and I'm a complete narcissist with super supportive parents who went to private school all my life with the exception of the gifted program I attended once a week in grade school, so I can't say I ever looked to the music industry for anything but entertainment. Not everyone is from such a privileged background as myself, however, and though I applaud Young Jeezy's efforts to encourage kids who like his music to focus their writing on their inspirations, I have to say that he's not exactly who I would want a high school kid to turn to when thinking about colleges or careers or even graduating high school at all. While Young Jeezy's lyrics are undoubtedly a superb primer for kids aspiring to be a former-cocaine-dealer-turned-overnight-millionaire-rapper, I don't think that the high school guidance counselors of the greater Atlanta metropolitan area would be terrifically psyched that he's marketing himself as some type of mentor.

Furthermore, I would like to know who is judging this essay contest, and I pray that it's not Young Jeezy himself. My boy Mr. 17.5 possesses a command of the English language that is at best idiomatic and at worst completely fucked-up and unintelligible. For example, one of his trademarks is his tendency to "ad lib." Usually most people think "ad libbing" refers to making a clever and unexpected, unscripted quip. Jeezy thinks this means saying "Ayyyyy," "Jeah!", "Dayummm," or "That's riiiiiight" when there is a pause between his lyrics. Also, as much as I appreciate the urban colloquialisms employed by Young Jeezy, try getting a job when you walk into the interview and ask your prospective employer "What it do? What the business is?" Sometimes in lab and we're listening to either Let's Get It!:Thug Motivation 101 or The Inspiration (a frequent occurrence), I'll intersperse talking about killing mice or running gels or whatever with a query to my platonic life partner like, "Yo, J-Sexy, can I get a ad lib?", and she'll just roll her eyes and say something like, "Oh, that silly fat man, he doesn't make any sense." Then, for good measure, she'll usually add, "And neither do you, Razzy."

Furthermore, if his song titles or MySpace blog entries are any indication, Jeezy can't spell the word "love" correctly (ie: "I luv it"), nor does he understand the concept of an acronym. His song "J.E.E.Z.Y." in no way explains what J.E.E.Z.Y. stands for, and I have the feeling Young Jeezy titled it as such because he liked the way that looked better than simply "Jeezy" or "JEEZY". And don't get me started on his claims about being "the realist." At first I thought this meant he had an astute, prudent, pragmatic worldview. After listening to him say, "They lies, they phonies, they fakes...these niggaz never sold their weight, I'm the motherfuckin' realist," I realized that he actually means "realest", an invented word meaning "the most real" in terms of drug dealing street credibility. I can only hope that the winner of this contest was able to string at least one sentence of coherent English together.

It's great that the winner gets a $2500 college scholarship and a pizza party for their class, but...an essay contest?! Keep worrying about the red dogs in your trap, Jeezy, and leave the scholarly philanthropy to people who use their public platform to discuss something besides their ability to cook, grind, and sell crack, and whose academic credentials include things beside being able to count 200 grand in crumpled-up ones.

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Monday, December 18, 2006

 

Go get "Go Getta"

So last week, Jay "Young Jeezy" Jenkins released his sophomore album, The Inspiration nee Thug Motivation 102. Obviously, I immediately purchased it. In fact, I had to purchase it twice because I initially accidentally bought the "clean" version on iTunes, and I like my rap music explicit and nasty.

Now, I'll probably write an entire review of this eventually, because I think that my boy Da Snowman is fucking hilarious, and so far I'm enjoying the entire album. Jeezy claims that he dropped the Thug Motivation 102 subtitle from the album because it's such a tremendous departure from his first album Let's Get It!: Thug Motivation 101, I guess the beats are kind of different, but as far as I can tell the entire thing is about souped-up Chevies, avoiding the "red dogs" (AKA the police) and dominating the Atlanta street cocaine dealing scene (AKA "trapping"). Since these are the main topics addressed in every Young Jeezy song ever written, and since in the first song Jeezy's saying stuff like "Call me Rubik's cube, we got the white squares" and "I got a half a brick left, do anybody want it?" and doing his usual trademark "ad libs" (ie: barking "jeah!", "tha's riiiiiight", "daaaayum", and "ayyyy" during lyrical pauses), I don't see what's all that different about The Inspiration that warrants ejection from the syllabus of Jeezy's instructional Thug Motivation courses, but whatever. My comparative analysis of Young Jizzle's musical repertoire is of little consequence.

The purpose of this particular post is to praise one particular song, entitled "Go Getta." I hadn't really paid close attention to the other people who were lending their vocal talents to this album, but as soon as "Go Getta" started, I immediately snapped to attention. "Young Jeezy," sang a familiar voice to kick off the song, and said voice definitely reminded me of somethin', somethin' along the lines of my jeep, sound, car, and bank account...could it be? COULD IT FUCKING BE?! Validating my suspicions, the voice next sang, "...and ya boy Keeellllllls." YES! YES! YES!!!! My boyfriend Robert Sylvester Kelly and Young Jeezy teaming up to sing about trapping all day and playing all night being the life of a go getta! AWESOME!

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I pointed this out to J-Sexy, who, when I told her I'd purchased the Young Jeezy album, rolled her eyes and said, "Ugh, that dis-gos-ting fat man, I don't know why you like him." I was like, "well, first because he compares himself to Will Smith and then names his gun Jada, and secondly, and most interesting to you, THAT GUY SINGING THE HOOK IS R. FUCKING KELLY!" and cranked my computer speakers so she could hear my Robert singing about how "ya boy Kells out da coupe in Miami white linen" to "put D on chicks like Wallace." (Why exactly he's trying to defend himself against these women in the manner of Chicago Bulls center Ben Wallace is unclear, but presumably it means something other than that he'll be battling them for rebounds, because later he notes that he and Jeezy are leaving with a "shitloada women.") In case you're now dying to hear this song, here's a really ghetto "video" (meaning there is no video at all besides a still shot of the Jeezy album cover):

J-Sexy loves her some R. Kelly, and I think she liked it a little though she subsequently pronounced the song "ridicolos" and went back to loading her protein gel. However, I noticed that she was doing a little wining while working in spite of herself. You can't fool me, Life Partner! I, in turn, promptly played "Go Getta" like 5 more times until, much to J-Sexy's relief, I had to run some errands and thus had to relinquish my status as Lab DJ. However, to all my friends in the P-N-Dub, I fully burned The Inspiration, and you can expect me to annoy you all for the next two weeks with "Go Getta" starting with my arrival at Seattle-Tacompton airport tomorrow night!

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