Freak Convergences In Pop Culture: Framing Hanley Versus Lil Wayne

This will surprise no one but The Snob hates Lil Wayne with a passion. Not personally of course. I'm sure he's a swell sort of gross looking dude. Nice by the bundles, but I can't say I'm a fan. I loathe the overuse of Autotune on nearly every rap/R&B single right now and since Lil Wayne is a chronic offender I am chronically offended by his alleged "music."

But, this doesn't mean The Snob is a music snob. I'm a snob about a lot of things, but my music collection pretty much runs the gamut from "look how sophisticated and astute I am" Nina Simone to a "What are you? Twelve?" 99 cent download of the Jonas Brothers "Burnin' Up." I can enjoy crappy pop music with the best of them, I just have my limits and Lil Wayne's ode to fellatio is one of those limits. Not only is the thought of Lil Wayne singing about his ding-a-ling on "Lollipop" gross to me, the whole song gives me a bad case of the Linda Blairs, complete with pea soup spitting action and colorful cursing. But imagine my confusion when I cursed the net and found this cover one evening.

(To see the actual music video, click here, but you have to sit through nearly two minutes of boring kids boring talking about banal, drunken suburban shizz before they rock out with the cock out to some Young Weezy reinterpretation.)

I don't know who these Flaming Henley people are, other than they look like horrid Fall Out Boy clones, but I was amazed at the mileage they managed to push out of Wayne's "Lollipop," taking your standard, rouchy club track and turning it into vintage "cock rock," emo Def Leppard-style, recalling a pop punk "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

Back in the day, habitual song murder Pat Boone would have de-crunked the shit out of any sexuality laden bit of black music he shlacked. Boone was known for his ability to easily de-bone and regurgitate "race music" for the skittish, demure white masses. Something for the folks who just couldn't handle Little Richard's pompadoured, fey sexual chocolate and fainted at just the mere thought of Chuck Berry's precious, white girl lovin' ding-a-ling. But what do you call it when a white, suburban rock band covers classic Negro raunch and keeps all the raunch, just removes the Negro?

The song is still rather gauche, yet different. And you can't really say they necessarily made it more palatable. The white masses, no longer being held back by their stogy anti-race music grandparents, love Lil Wayne to the tune of millions of illegal downloads. Hell, indie rock internet queen Marie Digby covered he and The Game's "My Life" practically verbatim in the style of Lilth Fair and it somehow became some flowery folk American paean akin to a Dawson's Creek-ification of "House of the Rising Sun."

What seems truly apparent is how much American music, created by whites and blacks, influences one another. How blacks created Rock N' Roll, how white musicians took Rock N' Roll and changed it up, eventually creating their own style distinctly different, yet obviously related sound. And when you throw it altogether and actually keep the integrity (as opposed to committing the soft bigotry of lowered expectations that was Boone's shtick), what you have in the end is the elements of what made the song an attractive song to people in the first place.

People like Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" because it is a sexual fantasy you can dance to, the classic ingredients for a party song. Framing Hanley kept the sex, the fantasy and the dancing, but lost the Autotune, added guitars and some rock bravado I thought was long dead since the advent of Grunge in the 1990s.

Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden and the like effectively killed all rock music that was about solely about party penis power, largely because grunge was so serious and Guns N' Roses, the last arena rock act standing, was not. Alternative rock eventually became a very pop slickened medium, whether pretty boy introspective (The Fray or Coldplay), hopelessly twee (Belle and Sebastian) or whatever the hell My Chemical Romance is supposed to be. (Emo-metal? Melodic punk?)

Rap music, on the other hand, maintained its sex driven streak despite the different flavors of the genre available. You could go for something enlightened or you could go for something gangster, but sex and rap music (just like sex and black music in general) have pretty much gone stayed the same. Never has one ethnicity wrote so many different odes to fornication in so many styles. It's not that we don't have other things to sing about, but sex appears to be a favorite topic. While the men of rock were getting in touch with the softer side of Sears, rap music was trying to figure out how they could make the song more explicit. "Lollipop" was a track made for the strip clubs (much like "I'm In Luv Wit A Stripper" and pretty much everything T-Pain sings).

But if Soundscan is to be believed, Lil Wayne's style of pop is the thing the kids are into these days, regardless of pigmentation, leaving me to wonder:

When you produce Wayne's pop with only a slight format change, are you creating a revolution in your genre (is this the return of white boys singing proudly about their dicks again?) or is this a pathetic attempt to stand out from the emo pack by hopping on Tattoo Face's leaf overs? Did they make the song better? Did they make it worse? Was the song beyond redemption anyway, so no cover mattered? Will this take us back to how country and R&B artists would regular cover each others hits because the genres were similar enough to make the song a successful, but the audiences were so far removed that they wouldn't even know whether you were listening to Buck Owens covering Ray Charles or Ray Charles covering Buck Owens? (Or for folks my age, country singer Mark Wills twanging up some Brian McKnight versus country fans who had no clue who Brian McKnight originally wrote and performed "Back At One?" Or pop/R&B boy band All-4-One's habitual country track ripping?)

I'm thinking this is a one-off gimmick/tribute to what's technically hot in the streets. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just the latest bizarre hybrid born out something singularly American pop music.

The Retro Kids Do Have Day Jobs

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I've regularly posted befuddlement at The Retro Kids wondering what they did for a living (besides go to NYC parties) and if their high top fades and braided gold chains were meant as a homage to the Hip Hop style that existed before the industry started pumping millions into the Rap Industrial Complex. Or if they were making fun of folks of my generation (teens and preteens of the late 80s through the 1990s).

Where they making fun of The Snob and my long hair, fully curly and crunchy to the side (with a banana clip -- of course, circa 1990, wearing a vertical stripped dress* to my sixth grade banquet where I was one of the two keynote speakers. Where I unveiled my hard earned dancing skills (I practiced in the basement for weeks with my more agile little sister, Deidre the Baby Snob, who went on to be a theater and dance major.) There at the banquet I busted a mean Roger Rabbit to some Bobby Brown after the award's dinner at Hazelwood East High School. Because I can't tell if the Retro Kids are making fun of that. That night was not funny to me.

Since kindergarten I'd been teased mercilessly for being different. By sixth grade everyone had calmed down and accepted me for who I was. I'd sat on my "cute" pair of glasses the night before the banquet and rather that wear my old hideous pink/purple plastic old lady specs from the fourth grade I went to the thing blind and specs-less. To my shock, everyone responded to me like I was the hottest chick in the room. I was "that girl" from the cheesy movies where you take off the glasses (and develop somewhat of a figure) and suddenly I was hot. That begot four years of bitching to my mom to get me contact lenses. So that night of 90s tackiness is a night of wonderfulness for me. Don't mock it, Retro Kids. Other than that -- Rock on. (From kanYe West Blog, via reader Whitty)

*I have got to dig up that picture. I swear to God. I was the hottest 12 year old in the game that night. I wouldn't feel that way again until college in my sorority days. (Left: My seventh grade ID from the former Kirby Junior High School in St. Louis County. Check them bangs. I was the hotness and no one even knew it.)

Also, scary. I can still do all those dances in the video. I made Baby Snob teach me all of them. Baby Snob has crazy skills. She had the Janet Jackson "If" video dance down pat. It was incredible, but she's always been awesome in that way. She's the official "Hot Chick" of the Snob sisters.

Trailer for Biggie Biopic "Notorious"

This movie has a January 2009 release which isn't always the best sign. (Although a February release date is a death knell.) The movie features Angela Bassett as Voletta Wallace, Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace's mother and Derek Luke as Sean "Diddy" Combs. Newcomer Jamal Woolard plays Biggie. I still have a bad "trainwreck" feeling about this and the trailer does not squash that feeling. The director is George Tillman Jr. who helmed both "Barbershop" films, "Soul Food" and "Roll Bounce." He might be able to pull it off. Maybe they'll cut together a better trailer that will make me less skeptical. Although, to be honest, I don't know why this movie is being made. Bad Boy is one of the producers so this isn't going to be an objective piece of art by any stretch. Any Biggie fans out there planning to watch this? (Black Voices)

Nas For Obama: Good Thing? Bad Thing? WTF Thing?

It seems rapper Nas has joined with black progressive activist group Color of Change in their campaign to challenge FOX News for their habitual Negromongering over Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. Sometimes it feels like 1952 on there -- the way we never were. Someone had to launch a counter-attack.

From MTV.com:

You don’t have to be invited onto Nas’ tour bus to know that the big screen in the back lounge isn’t tuned to Fox News. Ever.

If the track “Sly Fox” (”Watch what you watchin’, Fox keeps feeding us toxins/ Stop sleeping, start thinking”) on Untitled didn’t already tip you off that the MC isn’t a fan, then his position at the front of the pack at a press conference held outside the “fair and balanced” news network’s Manhattan headquarters should seal the deal.

At 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, Nas is joining the Web sites ColorOfChange.org and MoveOn.org to deliver a petition with more than 620,000 signatures demanding that the network end what the organizations call a “pattern of racist attacks against black Americans including presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.”

“Fox poisons the country with racist propaganda and tries to call it news,” Nas said in a statement. A spokesperson for Fox News could not be reached for comment at press time.

But Nas? As one poster on Jack & Jill Politics opined, "Wasn't Will Smith available?"

Will Smith, like Obama, is not prone to gaffes, is tightly in control of his press and career and knows how to behave in polite circles. He's friendly enough for the white folks, yet down enough for the blacks. He's your basic "Blackness Ambassador." It's a title you get when you bridge two worlds semi-successfully. I'm a Blackness Ambassador. So is Oprah and Gwen Ifil. It's a pain in the ass explaining what a pressing comb is to white people, but someone has to do it.

Nas is not the sort of guy who bridges that gap with a Coke and a smile. Yet that's who we got. Nas, a guy who tried to release his latest album under the title "Nigger," including wearing gear with the world "Nigger" printed on it at the Grammys. He changed the title. (Did people learn nothing from Ol' Dirty Bastard's "N*gger Please" album? MTV VJ's can't exactly drop that title on TRL.) But Nas is also a talented rapper with a great pro-Obama song. He's more conscious than say, Jay-Z, and other than sometimes sounding like an idiot (as rappers are prone to do when they discuss things outside of their sphere of influence -- no one asked your opinion on "Jesse can't keep shit in the family"-gate). He's no T-Pain. If T-Pain or Lil' Weezy were repping for Color of Change's anti-FOX protest I'd be concerned.

And I'd be saying, was Puffy not available? I'm sure he could have pulled out some of those old "vote or die" T-shirts.

Jokes aside, I guess I'm glad Nas is taking an active role in getting Obama elected. I would have preferred him being polite on the sidelines, writing good pro-Obama rap songs like "Black President," then registering to vote and later actually showing up at the polls to vote for Obama, but that's me. Also, I don't know if Obama wants most rappers' help -- donations? YES. Obama takes cash. But I'm sure he also has a naughty and nice list for rapper fans.

Mos Def, good.
will.i.am, perfect.
Queen Latifa, good.
Lupe Fiasco, has potential.
Snoop Dogg, bad.
Yung Berg, bad.
50 Cent, bad.
Kanye, risky.

But pro-rapper love or not, Barack is getting his help. Nas, Move On and Color of Change to the rescue.

It's great when we all work together.

But Jack & Jill Politics commenter "Town" sums up my true cynicism about this endeavor.

Publicity stunt on Nas' part, IMO.

I'll bet a box of Krispy Kreme donuts that Bill O'Reilly will call ColorofChange a racist hate organization and he'll talk about how the gangsta rapper NAS loves the n-word so much that he wanted to name his album that but the good folks at Walmart took a stand against such racist filth.

Yeah ... that feels about right. And he'll work George Soros in there too. And Jesse Jackson. That's the FOX I know. Just let the bigotry wash over you like a bath of battery acid. So warm and stinging.