T.I. - Got Your Back

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T.I.
Got Your Back
Ass Kissing
#99 (Low)
Oct 28, 2010
DJBooth

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He'll go to church with you
and then visit your mom

Huh. T.I's a kiss-ass. Who woulda thought?

“Got Your Back” is somewhere between that groveling stand-up guy who proclaims “women are smarter than men” to his audience to win approval and the easy sketch comedy bit about the perfect boyfriend who loves to hang out with the lady's mother, watch Oprah, and take dance lessons together.

Maybe T.I's making up for Wiz Khalifa's casual misogyny, but I don't know if he needs to be stroking the female ego this hard-- he comes across as the hero in his own romance novel. Maybe he should re-think his promotional photos and go with something a little more book-cover Fabio... because, seriously: “We front row at fashion shows as well as sunday morning service.” He left out the part where he makes her breakfast in bed and does the dishes after.

Like the other songs this week, no one's using stock beats-- musically, this is a more thoughtful piece than something that raids the europop handbook-- but that lead synth sounds like the Casio my little sister had when she was 8. So: points for actually doing something with the music... points off for it not sounding very good.

One thing that stands out over the course of this song is T.I's skill with rhythm and rhyme: this guy is clever and unconventional, stacking rhymes within and throughout lines, having the rhythmic payoff hit a beat later than you'd expect; it's my first time listening to him, but it's pretty easy to tell that this guy has some chops.

It's a little sad that this song is so damned cheesy, though. It's hard to listen to anyone pander this shamelessly.

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Wiz Khalifa - Black and Yellow

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Wiz Khalifa
Black and Yellow
Bragging
#51 (LoMid)
Oct 28, 2010
DJBooth

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As soon as I ask “where have all the rappers gone?” I find myself engulfed by them... so before I get into Wiz Khalifa, I'm going to ask: where have all the bands gone? I'm not just curious-- I'm praying I can evoke them the way I've evoked rappers. Here's hoping.

As for “Black and Yellow,” I'm discovering that my measure of these songs' worth fall into two very easy categories: separating the wheat from the chaff is as easy as determining “does this song have any personality?” That may just be my particular relationship with music, but I'm usually going to value a song that has the stamp of effort and humanity above a song that sounds perfectly engineered to end up on the charts regardless of who sings it.

And now we break from pop music to explore the dominant themes in the writings of George Orwell...

Just imagine the car...

Just kidding. (but not really)

There are so many hilarious mistakes in the brag track “Black and Yellow” that it sort of demands respect for being such an individual's song. From the weirdly Christmas carol opening to the main theme (apparently, his car is black and yellow: “the niggas' scared of it, but the ho's ain't”), there isn't actually anything good about this song, but it's so humorously, badly written that it's a hell of a lot more endearing than a lot of the bad songs I've heard so far. There's no way a pop producer or media guru made this song happen.

The goofy “Jingle Bells” chorus (which also opens the song) is part of it: where Waka Flocka Flame's song was dramatically epic, Wiz Khalifa's sounds like a Christmastime commercial for bargain kitchenware. This is music that invites Dick Van Dyke down the chimney... it's even funnier in a song that is mostly one guy bragging about how sexy and dangerous he is.

MCs and rappers, more than anyone else in music (except maybe the black metal guys... but I doubt they're going to be popping up here anytime soon), represent their image in words; Wiz Khalifa doesn't come across as a particularly bright guy. For one, even if his car impresses guys and attracts women, talking endlessly about his car does nothing but make him sound like a huge douche, and his delivery doesn't exactly make him sound clever.

My favorite part of this affair is that the ridiculous Christmas chorus is, verbatim “Yeah! Ah-ah, you know what it is. Black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow,” and... while I figure that we all get the point of the song... by the end he calls us all out: “You already know what it is. If you don't, you should by now.” The constant harping on what it is keeps bringing Grandpa Simpson into my head.

Moving on, lyrics like “not a lesbian, she a freak, though” remind me of the parallels between the current hip hop and R&B scene and 80's party rock hair metal-- these are dim guys who relate to the whole world through the prism of a giant ego. Big houses and shiny cars... now bring me the women. For this song, that isn't even symbolic; the car really is the whole point, and Khalifa thinks it makes women want him and men want to be him.

Embracing the fact that this is not the way a hip with the ladies, admired by the fellas, suave, cool guy talks (I have a really nice car! You should see it!), I'll take the funny-bad music over the bland-bad any day... but outside of a good laugh, I'm not needing to hear this one again.

Please tell me this guy's not a superstar.
 

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Waka Flocka Flame - No Hands

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Waka Flocka Flame
No Hands
Impress the Girl
#18 (HiMid)
Oct 28, 2010
Myspace

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I may have to re-think my song selection process-- while #3 in the charts has a lot more flexibility from week to week than #1, it doesn't really change enough for me to get a lot of new music. Nelly held the spot two weeks in a row, so I skipped down to #4 last week and got Rihanna. Nelly's no longer #3 this week... but guess what: Rihanna is. I had to skip down to #5 to find a song I haven't already reviewed-- and that gave me another mass produced, cookie cutter techno-pop song. Seriously: I tried to write a review of "DJ Got Us Fallin in Love" by Usher, but it was like trying to review a McDonald's cheeseburger: I didn't like it, but it was too generic to inspire any kind of criticism other than “why do people buy this?” It all points to me needing to find a different number in the top 10, a little further from the traffic jam around #1... but that will be next week.

So... moving on: I've already hit this week's #17 too, but as far as I'm concerned, Cee Lo can stay in the top 20 forever (if there were any justice in this system, the zero-personality Rihanna and Usher tracks would be eating his dust). This brings us to Waka Flocka Flame: it's no surprise I don't know this guy, but man is that an awesome name. I'm not sure I could say it aloud and keep a straight face.

Thankfully, Waka doesn't live in the pre-fab pop wasteland that houses the godawful Usher track I narrowly avoided-- this beat wasn't pulled from the factory demo of an old Roland groovebox. There's some clever movement to the kick, and the rapid hi-hat is always bouncing around in the stereo field. I don't want to blow it out of proportion, but somebody actually worked on this beat and got creative. And the hype man's part in the beginning of the first verse is an awesome almost-synth-kick: “bow bow bow bow...”

And, hey, this answers a question I've been asking myself for a little while: I've been hearing a lot of soulless autotuned singers over funkless raver beats, but didn't there used to be rappers in this genre? Everyone on this track has better style, flow, rhythm... well, better everything, than the guys on Chris Brown's track. Lyrically, it is a club track: lots of bragging, calling out the song's guest stars, and appreciating the booty, but it's nice to hear some wordsmiths simply ply their trade. It's a nice change from the empty non-song I thought I was going to write about today.

Add N to (x), an all-vintage-synth band, has a song called “The Regent Is Dead,” which evokes a kind of swords and sorcery, epic fantasy landscape... musically, “No Hands” reminds me of that piece. I think that's both cool and sort of hilarious: the synth progressions are kind of epic. 80's fantasy movie epic. This might be the most gravitas booty's ever had. (ha!)

Overall, I think there's some pretty cool stuff in here, and it is a huge step up from a lot of what I've heard while doing this project... but I'm not ready to call myself a Waka Flocka Flame fan. I'm not calling “No Hands” a bad song; I'm thankful it broke up a rut I needed to escape, but I'm also not keeping a copy.
 

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

This was the hardest "style" category I ever tried to lock down... it's not entirely a bragging track, but it's also not all about the awesome booty; it's a little of both.  So I'm going with "Impress the Girl"-- it's boastful, but it's boastful to win the hottie.