“Mr Cheeks”, perhaps the most unintentionally gay name in rap
Unintentional Gay Rap Lyrics is a blog that compiles, well, unintentionally gay-sounding lyrics from rap songs. Most of these rhymes were not designed to be, ahem, taken that way but it’s still pretty hilarious thinking of these über-butch (and in some cases homophobic) dudes in that kind of situation. Here are some choice examples:
GURU: “To all you herbs, i got something for that ass - the tongue of terrifying fury”
(From Gangstarr’s “Tongue of Terror”)
BEANIE SIEGEL: “I’ll blow a nigga for a box of Huggies.”
(From “Toney Siegel aka The Barrell Brothers”)
BEENIE MAN: “How can i make love to a fella in a rush”
(From “Who Am I”)
BIGGIE: “We fucked in his bed, quite dangerous, I’m in his ass while he playing against the Utah Jazz”
(From “I Got A Story To Tell”)
DMX: “Suck my dick. And while you niggas that’s been to jail before know it’s about to get thick. Let’s get it on baby. I’m gonna be goin’ against 4 niggas and you think you crazy?”
(From “What’s My Name”)
SNOOP DOGG: “I got a pocket full of rubbers and my homeboys do too.. so turn out the lights and close the door (but for what?) we don’t love them hoes!”
(From “Gin and Juice”)
So let’s be clear here: You’ve got condoms, so do your boys, you just turned off the lights and closed the door. And you hate women. That’s so gay.
BIG PUN: “When you awaken, your manhood will be taken.”
(From “The Dream Shatterer”)
Thaaaat sounds like rape, and I bet you’d wake up if a 400 pound Puerto Rican man started deflowering you in your sleep.
For much of this decade, UK grime and hip-hop MCs have been focusing on skills much more than swag, and have fostered a sound that evokes what many consider the “golden era” of hip-hop circa mid-‘80s-to-mid-‘90s. It’s a stripped-down, loquacious and attitudinal sound, short on gimmicks and high on the culture. And in some crucial ways, it’s putting the American hip-hop scene to shame.
The last truly great MC squad to come out of hip-hop was the Wu Tang Clan. But there’s little reason to doubt that the UK Female Allstars—a rhyme crew assembled by British producer Mikey J (best known for his work with East London superstar MC Kano)—could rise to, or possibly even surpass, the Wu’s legendary status. (I’ll prolly get shit for saying that, but what the hell…)
The UK Female All Stars are made up of Mz Bratt, Lady Leshurr, Lioness, RoxXxan, Baby Blue and A.Dot. If you love hip-hop, just check out this video for the Allstars’ debut single “Rock the Mic,” both of which dropped yesterday (they’re giving the tune away here. And try to tell me these women don’t have game.
I’m drawn to The Grammy Awards much in the same way that I find myself rubbernecking at a multi-car pile up on the freeway or dropping a crisp dollar bill to see the two-headed cow at a carnival sideshow. This year’s production wasn’t much different than the usual pop star circle jerk. The Boss opened the festivities with his usual blue collar bombast (which I did find rousing) followed by….well, I can’t really remember. Disembodied heads float through my brain like balloons at a birthday party - I think that one is Brian Wilson…oh look, Paul McCartney…isn’t that a Foo Fighter…George Jones?...no, Glen Campbell. For a moment, I thought I saw James Brown but according to later reports it was Bruno Mars channeling the lost Hawaiian member of Sha Na Na.
Alright, I’m fucking around here. No one expects much of the Grammys and it always pretty much lives up to our diminished expectations even in a year when the ghost of Whitney Houston hovered above the ceremony, stuck in some kind of twisted Bardo Plane, a malignant magnetic field that humans create to entrap the vestiges of the ones they love, as if the dead are paying attention to any of it. If Whitney managed to make it to heaven she had to bypass the purgatory of media hype. Among the dead, this is known as tabloid turbulence. As I’m not a fan of the long wail that follows a pop stars death, that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate Houston’s talents. But I save my hue and cry and gnashing of teeth for Syria, Libya, Greece and the radiated folks who lived near the Fukishima power plant. You know what I mean? Or maybe you don’t. Go ahead tell me that I’ve somehow disrespected Whitney in our national hour of mourning. Fine. I can dig it.
So where is all this leading? Well, it leads to the performance that managed to transform the banalities of award ceremonies into something so awesomely tacky, cheesy and sublime that it makes Madonna’s appearance at the Super Bowl look like a classy outtake from Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra. I’m talking about Nicki Minaj’s delirious take on her hit “Roman Holiday,” a spectacle so staggeringly unhinged that I thought I had taken some Ambien and wandered into a theater where a triple bill of Showgirls, Flaming Creatures and The Exorcist were playing simultaneously while a popcorn machine was ejaculating giant buttered nuggets into my lap causing my scrotum to pulsate like a vibrating bed in a sleazy motel somewhere on Route 666. And I loved it!
Dave Grohl may have worn a Slayer t-shirt but it was Minaj that brought the dark stuff to the Grammys.
Footage from the 1989 record release party of the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique album on the rooftop of the Capitol Records building in Hollywood. Hard to imagine that this iconic building is being converted into condos!
I sent this clip to my old pal Sean Fernald, who was a marketing exec at Capitol at the time and he wrote back saying that he “remembered that day well.” They really were beastie boys back then. Now they’re beastie men...
For its 20th anniversary in 2009, Paul’s Boutique was remastered in 24-bit audio that significantly improved upon the murky mastering of the original CD.
It’s been brought to my attention by Collapse Board’s Wallace Wylie that Pitchfork have dedicated an entire page to calling MIA an asshole because she apparently told the American public to fuck off during Madonna’s Super Bowl performance last night. In case you hadn’t heard, MIA did indeed raise her middle finger during Madonna’s overblown performance of “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” on which the rapper makes a guest appearance. To see the incident, scroll down to the bottom of this post.
What’s extra annoying about last night’s event is that M.I.A. doesn’t need these cheap ploys to up her visibility, even when the stage design and costuming is best described as “GoldenPalace.com.” After all, she released her first great single in years just last Thursday, and its music video had already racked up more than 3 million YouTube views even before the Super Bowl send-up. Following the rep-shattering press surrounding 2010’s /\/\/\Y/\, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to draw as much focus as possible back to her music. [So why run this story?]
Instead, in the few bars Madonna was kind enough to grant her during the biggest television event of the year, M.I.A.‘s message to America was simply, “Fuck you.” Well, in M.I.A.‘s own words, the little people will never win, but they can fuck shit up. Success might be the best revenge, but apparently, being an asshole is forever.
Seriously Pitchfork, GET A FUCKING GRIP.
As I stated in my last post about her, I am an MIA skeptic. I have found her performances and music to be underwhelming in the past, though I have really warmed to her latest video “Bad Girls.” The same goes for last night’s performance at the Super Bowl - it ain’t no great shakes, though she does look great. But if you take this much offense at last night’s throw-away hand gesture—which I honestly might not have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me—then you seriously need your head examined. Yes, seriously. Just look at the clip below, and then tell us how offended you are on a scale of one to ten.
What I find truly bizarre about this reactionary Pitchfork piece is the level of personal affront the writer has taken at MIA’s (actually rather tame) gesture. According to this article MIA is not just flipping the bird at a camera or a camera person, she is not just flipping the bird as a routine hand gesture that countless MC regularly use, she’s not flipping the bird to accentuate her line about “not giving a shit” - no, MIA is flipping the bird to show her disgust at every single person in the United States of America. AMERICA, MIA HATES YOU!!! And especially those who may have tuned in to the Super Bowl to see her!! Yes, this makes perfect sense.
With that in mind I’m really, REALLY looking forward to seeing Pitchfork calling out Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Fred Durst, Jonathan Davis and countless other rappers and rockers who have raised their middle finger on national television at some point in the past and will do so again in the future. Because THEY must hate America and everyone watching them at that moment TOO, right?
Unfortunately, this will never happen. As other writers have pointed out in the past, Pitchfork has a legacy of sexism to its tarnished name, which explains the hyperbolic over-reaction to a common hand gesture in this news piece. Had this been done by a man it would surely be lauded as “punk,” yet when MIA flips the bird during a televised game where grown men BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER, she’s an asshole who hates every single person watching her at that very moment. Living and dead. I mean seriously, how is anyone watching American Football going to cope with the mental scars that seeing a raised middle finger can bring?!?
That’s leaving aside the fact that MIA is a brown woman, and not even from America itself. Unlike Madonna of course, who can remain completely blameless during this entire farrago, and who was “kind enough” to grant MIA exposure on her tune. As opposed to hiring MIA in the hope that some of her credibility will rub off on a very lukewarm track. Or even—get this—simply being a female performer who wants to work with another female performer.
What is also “extra annoying” is that Pitchfork has, in the past, given critical support to acts who condone the most brutal of violence against women and who have been deemed somehow edgy and confrontational because of it. Presumably because rape, sexism and homophobia is “punk” as opposed to “a cheap ploy to gain visibility.” I await with glee the moment when Pitchfork tells Tyler the Creator/Eminem/Lil Wayne to drop their bird-flipping schtick and draw our focus solely back to the music.
Again though, I doubt this will ever happen.
Pitchfork, with this news piece you have placed yourselves firmly (and finally) on the side of the fucking establishment.
Despite being a bit of an MIA skeptic in the past, I have to admit I fuckin’ love this video!
Amid all the brouhaha surrounding Madonna’s “Give Me All Your Luvin’”, which also premiered on Friday (it’s ok, nothing special), it seemed a bit mystifying as to why MIA would choose to premier her own video on the same day. Who the hell competes with Madonna? Especially when you are already featured in her song? Well, put that thought on ice my friends, because “Bad Girls” is worth a dozen “Give Me All Your Luvin’“s.
Director Romain Gavras takes the standard music video tropes of cars and girls, transplants it to a North African setting, and captures some beautiful imagery and wicked stunts on the way (the kind of thing we’re normally used to seeing in shakey, low-res YouTube clips). Most importantly though, this succeeds where other MIA and Gavras videos have failed - in particular the infamous “ginger-killing” clip for “Born Free” - in that it’s not patronising.
To me MIA works best when she’s not trying to be controversial, but just does what she does. She’s so inherently different from what passes for mainstream “pop” performers nowadays, that she doesn’t need to work harder to seem more edgy or confrontational. That’s why “Bad Girls” succeeds where “Born Free” failed, and why its simplicity is a lot more subversive. Rather than bludgeoning us over the head with exploding body parts, it gently reminds us: “Hey guys, look, Arabs are cool too! They’re not just cannon fodder for Arnie films and Western Imperialist wars.”
Music journalist Neil Kulkarni is one of the UK’s premier writers on hip-hop. He writes regularly for the Quietus, and readers of a certain age might recognise his name from the mid-90s, when he wrote about rap, and lots of other music, for Melody Maker.
Kulkarni has recently put together a mixtape of some of his favourite hip-hop tracks from the 90s, which he stresses is “not definitive”. It features music from the well known (Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, Camp Lo, KRS-1) to the more obscure (Cru, E-Bros, Don Jagwarr), and tracks from some of the most respected names of the era (Showbiz & AG, Kwest The Madd Ladd, Gravediggaz, Nas). On his blog he reflects on the artists and the tracks featured with some amusing anecdotes like this one about Jeru The Damaja:
Nastiest fucker I ever interviewed. Straight up racist. Once he figured out I wasn’t black, [he] clammed up, got surly, treated me like I was an idiot. I may have been, but fuck you very much Jeru and thankyouforthemusic, the songs I’m singing.
Shame to hear that Jeru is/was racist, as his tunes still sound great:
Jeru The Damaja “Ya Playin’ Yaself” live @ Rust, October 2010
You can hear ‘90s Hip-Hop Vol 1’ (and download it, once logged in) over at Mixcrate.
Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.
And so will we.
On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.
And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we want … the constitution will be our guide.
And when the G8 and NATO meet behind closed doors on May 19, we’ll be ready with our demands: a Robin Hood Tax … a ban on high frequency ‘flash’ trading … a binding climate change accord … a three strikes and you’re out law for corporate criminals … an all out initiative for a nuclear-free Middle East … whatever we decide in our general assemblies and in our global internet brainstorm – we the people will set the agenda for the next few years and demand our leaders carry it out.
And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.
Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
Below, footage of the confrontation between Chicago police and protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago:
album on the rooftop of the Capitol Records building in Hollywood. Hard to imagine that this iconic building is being converted into condos!
