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In Saturday Nov 22’s Irish Times, there was an article by a young man named Alan O’Riordan entitled How Fresh Went Stale. It was about hiphop, and how it hasn’t changed since the mid-90s. It says that even worse than the clothes these rappers have us wearing, MCs are going to have a hand in us shooting each other like they’ve already gotten the English doing, all we need do is look at the bebo sites of Limerick gang members. I don’t know about that. I’m not friends with any gangland killers on bebo, but then as a general rule I wouldn’t add a friend who has selected a 50 cent skin for their profile page, unless it was chosen in crisp delicious irony.
The article worried me because Alan claims to be a one time hiphop fan and I’d expect him to know better. My concern was that my mother, who knows I have listened to rap music since I was 12 years old, could have read it. Being in her late 50s and completely out of the loop she would have taken it at face value. I expected to return home and find the locks changed, with my mother inside petrified that I was going to cap her black ass with nickel-plated hollow-tip slugs from my tech-9, shouting out to me that if I didn’t slowly back down the driveway she’d drop a dime to five-0. She would adopt this parlance believing it to be all I could understand now that hiphop has turned me. You try to bring your kids up right, but then the Drester drops The Chronic in 92. Parents can’t compete with that.
I was moved to write a response about how there still is so much vibrant hip hip out there, and brilliant politically charged progressive rap music that does not embrace misogyny or homophobia. I was going to talk about a plethora of artists like Saul Williams, Edan, El-P, Busdriver, Buck 65, MF DOOM, Pharoahe Monch, Talib Kweli…. Well, I was going to go on for a while. But that was over a week ago now, and after asking myself what would black jesus do, I think I would just rather list my top 5 rap songs that are disrespectful to women in my new weekly feature where I give mad props to all you ride or die bitchaz out there!
At number 5, we have Eazy-E’s ode to the American automobile. If Three-6 Mafia can get an Oscar for It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp, I don’t see why this beautiful piano-led composition can’t scoop a posthumous Nobel prize for poor old Eazy-AIDS.
Ladies’ Lyrical Lowlight: “Get yo ass up you funky bitch and wash yo ass”
I give this track 4 female Chagrin Chromosomes: XX XX XX XX
At Number 4 it’s “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None)”. Pitch perfect G-funk era classic from Snoop Doggy Dogg’s debut and still best album, Doggystyle.
Lyrical Highlight: “Well if Kurupt gave a fuck about a bitch I’d always be broke, I’d never have no muthafuckin indo to smoke”
Snoop scores 3 vexed sets of homogametes for this effort: XX XX XX
Number 3 sees the late Big L weigh in with “No Endz, No Skinz”. While other rappers who were killed when they were 24 purported that mo money meant mo problems, Big L found a mathematical correlation between less money and less sexual activity.
Lyrical Highlight: “I wouldn’t give a chick 10 cent to put cheese on a Whopper”
XX XX unhappy homogametes
Number 2: Fur-Q and his wronging of Phil Collins with “Uzi Lover”
Lyrical Highlight: “Cock! Bitch! Cock bitch muthafucka!”
Score: XX XX XX
And at number 1 is “Bridgette”. The D.O.C., crooning along with some of his buddies from NWA, recounts the story of how he and his homies came to surprise a young lady with a gangbang. I think the only reason this hasn’t been made into a Reese Witherspoon romcom is because it ploughs a similar vein to one of Cecelia Ahern’s novels. It’s that despicable.
Lyrical Highlight: “I’m behind Ice Cube ’cause that’s where the line starts”
Unhappy Gametes Index: XX XX XX XX XX
