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4/100 RIFFS

51/100 RIFFS

83/100 RIFFS

Quote Unquote Shooter

Download: Lil Wayne: "Maneater [ft. Nelly Furtado] (Remix)"

Hello RAP Blogsters!

RIP IT

Granted I too caught myself thinking how rapper racist the Lil Wayne drug bust story seemed--two stale joints, bottles of pain killers, a hotel room, and a platinum rapper who has probably done infinitely more awesome illegal things and not gotten caught. It hurts our sense of celebrity to think that these superhumans can get in trouble for stuff too. We need our celebrities to be invincible--to do what they want, say what they want, light fireworks, go into 7-11s barefoot, sit in a Starbucks without buying a coffee, hack their cellphones without breaking warranty, etc, etc, etc., so Lil Wayne getting arrested yesterday or whenever is a serious blow to the American ego. Next week, Paris Hilton gets fined for letting her rat dog shit without a scoop-up.

Meanwhile, have we forgotten that $11K is not a lot of money to get your name up in Billboard News, MTV News, SOHH News, Nah Right, XXL, and all these other places? To make up for no radio hit, no public consciousness of your existence outside of mixtape buyers eating up your features and the occasional person who blogs about them? It's certainly cheaper than making a music video, albeit less bad-ass than shooting yourself in the hands or cutting at your face. Wayne's a fab writer and a supreme artist before he's a super star, otherwise "Shooter" would have been the technicolor moment I certainly wanted out of it--video, radio play, daily interviews with Shaheem Reid, whatever. Basically Wayne's bad at being a celebrity--good for the art so far (in retrospect he smartly didn't ride Katrina too hard did he), but I can see this guy anxious for the public to notarize his Best Rapper Alive status now, especially when he's miles ahead of everyone lyrically and totally knows it.

Meanwhile us kids can breathe a sigh of relief: Wayne's an elderly 26.

25/100 RIFFS

Such a Lady, Dancing Like a Ho

Download: "London Bridge"

Thank you for the emails. Short story shorter, I couldn't tell if the horrific pain inside my brain was actually inside my brain or just generally on/around my brain. Needless to say, I'm psyched (psyched) to report that the pain was merely on/around my brain.

In the meantime, Fergie's "London Bridge" has finally sonned Furtardo's "Promiscuous Girl" and now holds the #1 spot on the Hot 100. As you would expect in a world that gets angry because (get this) some people are drinking totally shitty wine instead of huge cans of Diet Sparks, several blogulators have stuffed no less than seven thongs up their butts in Fergie Ferg protest. These are typically people who can totally dig blowjobs and girl-fucking and the men and women who sing about both, so I wonder.

I like "London Bridge." I like producer Polow's oh-shits and sirens and actually cavernous tom sounds, indebted to Timbaland but the drums have more tone to them, not merely percussive, tuned so that the bass drum sound modulates, as if there are two basslines counting the bass clarinet riff. I like the few "production hears the lyrics" flourishes, and I like the quick "sultry string" breakdown at minute 2--such an obvious jab at "Promiscuous Girl," a song I loathe like shared sensation Trojans, so from the start dude's fighting the good fight. And I like Fergie fine. She has the industry-approved sexybitch hip-pop patois (from Missy to Gwen to Nelly, and all the other clowns before and betwixt), she's totally hot with her hair down, and for "shitty lyrics" these aren't that that bad: a sorta well-known architectural symbol turned Mother Goose rhyme turned, possibly, two men having sex with one woman and high-fiving for real in the feel, turned just one woman, Fergie, just wanting the regular sex that actual people have. So you can't fault "London Bridge" for no backstory.

But, we're told, rappers have already used metaphors. Who does Fergie think she is, using metaphors about stuff? Whose humps? Rappers already have funny names for titties, e.g. "cans," "titcans," "titbangers." Rappers are cleverer than Fergie who thinks she's a rapper but she's not I tell ya she's not she's not she's not. Meanwhile, let us all praise Shawnna's horrific "Gettin Some (Head)," a song that TELLS IT LIKE IT IS, FINALLY, a song that's also good only for the remix verses and the ridiculosity that is Pharrell trying to fast-rap. I can't wait for Shawnna's next forward-thinking album, where she connects contact microphones to her fallopian tubes, rubs muscle relaxer on her region, then lets Spankrock wear her vagina like a coonskin cap. Mash that up with "Cannonball" and we've got ourselves a winner don't we.

The rap precedent / rap forwardthought / rap jacked swagger arguments against "London Bridge" totally miss the point. This is not a rap song. The new Sonic Youth album is a terrible rap album too--what's your point? This is a pop song about women getting turned on and wanting to have sex with stuff. Better in the video: This is about a woman putting herself in one of the more women-compromising of situations--a gentlemen's club--and totally ripping shit, totally dominating not by vim but by genius I-Don't-Give-A-Fuck. Seriously game-over genius. From there "Bridge" is not even about being a bad-ass woman--it's about celebrity, doing whatever the hell you want simply because you can, making fun of the Royal Guard and not hearing shit about it, and, best of all, dancing like a ho.

And look. Not to grab nuts or anything, but you can't can't can't complain about Fergie's cholas bodyguards in the video, especially if you're playing the 'this song is wannabe hip-hop' card. (Mis)appropriation is fundamental, and you're clowning yourself if you don't think sampling a song and then saying stuff over said sample is any less offensive. We're talking about a music of violent oppositions, culture clashes, an image-is-everything non-reality. If the slapdash made sense all the time, what would you write about? The point is sampling. Everything is fair game. There are smart samples and questionable ones, but arguably none are intrinsically, aesthetically wrong.

That, and you gotta be kidding me if you've never heard a Chinese woman say something that sounded like "me love you long time."

64/100 RIFFS