February 24, 2005

• THURSDAY WHATEVER

  Rap

  When I gave my beloved Talented and Gifted 13-year-old grandson an iPod for Christmas, I vaguely knew what kind of music he listened to but until he asked me to download a few songs for him I didn’t actually look any closer. I did notice right away on iTunes that many of his choices had two different versions, one called “explicit.” So I was browsing on the Yahoo Music page yesterday and I saw a list called Top 10 Videos. First on the list was Candy Shop – Featuring Olivia by 50 Cent (see photo). I was so hopeful that somehow I would find something I could relate to in the lyrics, but here’s one verse of what I found:

  Give it to me baby, nice and slow
  Climb on top, ride like you in the rodeo
  You ain’t never heard a sound like this before
  Cause I ain’t never put it down like this
  Soon as I come through the door she get to pullin on my zipper
  It’s like it’s a race who can get undressed quicker
  Isn’t it ironic how erotic it is to watch em in thongs
  Had me thinking ’bout that ass after I’m gone
  I touch the right spot at the right time
  Lights on or lights off, she like it from behind
  So seductive, you should see the way she wind
  Her hips in slow-mo on the floor when we grind
  As Long as she ain’t stoppin, homie I aint stoppin
  Drippin wet with sweat man its on and popping
  All my champagne campaign, bottle after bottle its on
  And we gon’ sip til every bubble in every bottle is gone

  Click on the link above and you can read the whole thing. Okay, if you’ve read what I’ve written so far of my life story you’ll know I’m no prude, I’m not even old at heart, and I get it that by about age 13 hormones begin to give you tunnel vision, but I kind of feel like sending a swat team to retrieve the iPod. Of course, I know that would do zip good. I never let good sense stand in my way in my formative years (which seemed to go on much longer than average). So I delved a bit further. Who is 50 cent, for example? To put it in one sentence, out of a broken home in Queens (real name Curtis Jackson), he lost his mother at 8 and his father soon after, entered the crack trade, was in and out of prison, began rapping, began to record in 1996 but because in his debut album he talked about how to rob big-name rappers was stabbed and shot, lost his label, floundered, got picked up by the infamous Eminem in 2002 on his own label, producing the album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’ “(now there’s a spiritual concept), and has continued since as he’s risen to #1 on the charts to be tied to shootings, gun possession, and other criminal pursuits. Delving on, I learned that rap music appears to have originated around 1970 when DJ Kool Herc (real name Clive Campbell) immigrated from Kingston, Jamaica bringing with him the tradition of “toasting” (reciting rhymes over instrumental sections of reggae records). At this point, the rather complex terminology of rap overwhelms me – DJing, Breaking, Graf Artists, MCing, scratch, hip-hop, it’s wearing me out just to think about it. You can read the history of rap here if you want to press on. I have to catch my breath and meditate on whether to kidnap my grandson and escape to Canada, thereby avoiding both the coming draft and rap together. Oh, they probably have rap in Canada too. Maybe the North Pole?
  (Update: Okay okay, in August 1969 which is where I am in writing my story at the moment, the #1 hit song was this:

  Hello, I love you
  Won’t you tell me your name?
  Hello, I love you
  Let me jump in your game
  Hello, I love you
  Won’t you tell me your name?
  Hello, I love you
  Let me jump in your game
  She’s walking down the street
  Blind to every eye she meets
  Do you think you’ll be the guy
  To make the queen of the angels sigh?
  Hello, I love you
  Won’t you tell me your name?
  Hello, I love you
  Let me jump in your game
  Hello, I love you
  Won’t you tell me your name?
  Hello, I love you
  Let me jump in your game
  She holds her head so high
  Like a statue in the sky
  Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
  When she moves my brain screams out this song
  Sidewalk crouches at her feet
  Like a dog that begs for something sweet
  Do you hope to make her see, you fool?
  Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?
  Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello
  I want you
  Hello
  I need my baby
  Hello, hello, hello, hello

  Anybody know which pre-rapper sang that? He wasn’t Mr. Clean either in his shiny leather pants.)
  

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  Deep Thought: “As the evening sun faded from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I thought back to the salmon I caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how I named him Flint.”
  Today I am grateful for: Earphones
  Guess the Movie: “Don’t worry. As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely eighty-eight miles per hour the instant the lightning strikes the tower… everything will be fine.” Answer: Back to the Future, 1988. Winner: GracePrince.
  Canada Will Not Join U.S. Missile Defense System
  by David Ljunggren
  OTTAWA – After a political uproar, Canadian officials made clear on Tuesday the country will not sign on to a controversial U.S. missile defense system, a decision likely to be seen as a snub to President Bush.
  The move represents an about face for Prime Minister Paul Martin, who in the run-up to a federal election last June said he thought Canada should be part of a system designed to protect the North American continent.
  But Martin lost his parliamentary majority in that election and is now struggling to keep his minority government afloat with the support of a smaller left-leaning party which is strongly opposed to missile defense. (Rest of article here.)
  End of Day: 8:39 pm
  + = Really enjoyed everyone’s comments today and have ceased hyperventilating.
  - = Wish the day when all humans could be safe in their skins was not taking so long in coming.

  • 10:46 am
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