NOT On Repeat: DJ Khaled - All I Do Is Win

Despite my best efforts, this song was the de facto anthem of VT 2010. I'm not sure if R'OB or C'OB are to blame, but I have a rough count of 30 plays in 30 hours. And I wasn't even up late either of those nights, so 50 is probably a better estimate. In order to more eloquently pinpoint what makes this song so terrible, I've decided to make a list of Pros and Cons.

Cons
-This song is the music equivalent to the 2010 Celtics. 4 over-the-hill hip-hop artists who have no chance at scoring a hit single on their own, collaborate for one last run at a platinum recording. Don't believe me? Let's ask Wikpedia: Ludacris (32), Rick Ross (34), Snoop Dogg (38), T-Pain (24)*.

-Who the hell is DJ Khaled? Since when do producers get artist credit when they have no obvious role in the song aside from yelling his name? Is 99 Problems by Rick Rubin or Jay-Z? Case in point.

-Ludacris is a terrible rapper, and his verse here is no exception. With Ludacris you are guaranteed a cringe-worthy line, an eye-rolling line, and a borderline disgusting line. All I Do I Win has all three. In a row.

"My hands go up and down like strippers booty go.
My verses still be serving, tight like a million virgins,
Last time on a Khaled remix now on the original version.
Ain't never count me out,
Ya'll better count me in."

-Snoop Dogg is a parody of a caricature of his former self. When I'm 38, I probably will be too, but I won't be in a music video rhyming "Snoopy" and "Hoopty" around gyrating young women and bouncing convertibles. Interestingly, he has the most head-scratching verse in the whole song, claiming to have "hung with the worst of 'em, bust till I burst on 'em". My guess is he's referring to his confused sexual experimentation in college, but who's to say. It's more likely that he doesn't even know what he's talking about.

-All I Do Is Win isn't grammatically correct.

-T-Pain says "BUILDING" like a 4 year old.

-T-Pain "T-Pains" himself on his iPhone in the video, which would probably make him sound like Stephen Hawking.

-T-Pain's hair that makes him look like a cross between Princess Leia and Allen Iverson.

Pros:

-Attractive women in the music video.

-The part where T-Pain says "AND THEY STAY THERE!" is a little catchy.

-T-Pain's gesture at :44.

-I want to taste whatever that pink drink is they are all drinking.

-They seem to be having fun.

*While 24 is absolutely not old, no one would disagree that T-Pain is washed up.

On Repeat: Wale - The Black N Gold (feat. Sam Sparro)

Last week Wale released the free mixtape "More About Nothing" (available here), a sequel of sorts to his 2008 Seinfeld-themed "Mixtape About Nothing" that continues to sit comfortably in my mixtape pantheon. The interesting thing about this release, is that it somehow reconciles Wale's pop sensibilities from his disappointing Attention Deficit with the ferocity and verbal gymnastics of his mixtapes. The result is an amalgam of fantastic rhymes with glowing guest spots and hum-worthy choruses. Songs like The War with Daniel Meriweather and The Posse Cut stack up favorably with some of his best work, but perhaps the crown jewel of entire tape is The Black N Gold; a furiously buzzing stomper that finds Wale stuffing double the words on a beat most rappers could barely catch up to. Match this with Sam Sparro's breezy chorus, and you have a song that in a perfect world would be firmly entrenched atop the Billboard Top 40. I'll settle for you just giving it a listen.

Dentist

I went to the dentist today. I don't mind the dentist, and I don't understand why people are so terrified of them. Maybe it's because I didn't have any cavities or get braces or get sedated and have waking nightmares like David (see above). Sure the dentist can be a little rough with her miniature ice pick and she flosses me like a gorilla*; no harm, no foul.

The dentist office itself is exceedingly pleasant. There's a nice little waiting area with magazines fanned out so perfectly that I can't bring myself to disturb them. Every surface is pristine and gleaming with a shine that can only come from enslaved forest creatures. Even the receptionist greets me by name like an esteemed colleague. I think they may sip the laughing gas between patients.

Every hygienics office is equipped with a plush, golden leather chair and a flat screen television to distract from, or at least muffle the screams of your neighbors. This television was showing Giada on Food Network making some delicious tart, which felt like cruel and unusual punishment when I'm having my mouth gouged and prodded**. The Listerine cup had a layer of parafilm on top like a fancy hotel and the spittoon station was angled in such a way that I could rid my mouth of blood efficiently thereby reducing the chance of my hygienist realizing I need a blood transfusion and allowing me to maintain some semblance of dignity. That is, until the routine floss-related scolding. I try to defend myself, saying, "I do floss, but not usually with such vigor", which earns me no sympathy and a maternal nod. They gave me a goodie bag with a baller toothbrush  (even though she said I brush too hard and should only use an electric) and some single-serving floss packets that will never leave the bag. They didn't even hassle me to make another appointment. If there were more dentists like this the world, well, I don't think it would change anything, but it's still pleasant.

*She gorilla, me boy in chair.

**Military, take note.

Billy G = Str8 Killa

Just when you think Bill Gates can't get any more awesome, he goes and does something like "The Giving Pledge". If you haven't heard, Bill Gates is arguably the largest philanthropist in history, having given nearly 28 billion dollars to charity (as of 2007) through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The benefactors of their generosity are many, including billions of dollars for HIV, Polio and Vaccination research; huge grants for US Libraries, Universities, and Scholarship programs; and millions more in disaster relief and hygiene infrastructure in the developing world.

His philanthropy was enough to impress Warren Buffet a few years ago, convincing him to leave his entire fortune to charity at the time of his death, and now Gates and Buffet are tag-teaming fellow billionaires, hoping to add signatures to The Giving Pledge, effectively promising to bequeath at least 50% of their fortunes to the less fortunate. Thus far, 40 wealthy estates (including 30 billionaires) have signed on, with Bill and Warren hosting further meetings in the coming months for gentle arm twisting and general shmoozing. You cold Bill, you cold.

On Repeat: Perfume Genius - Mr. Peterson

Perfume Genius is the alias of one Mike Hadreas, a Seattle-based singer-songwriter (why does that phrase make me wince?). Of course, the actual "Perfume Genius" is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille of Paris, the protagonist of Patrick Suskind's "Perfume" who was born with an incredible sense of smell and used it to create and preserve the "perfect scent".

This Perfume Genius shares the same eerieness of that book on his debut album, singing haunting piano ballads that are as beautiful as they are unsettling. Just as Sufjan Steven's "John Wayne Gacy, Jr" turns one of most prolific serial killers in history into a tender story, Mr. Peterson tells of a young man's taboo relationship with his teacher and the suicide that followed. In someone else's hands, this song could be rife with hand-wringing, but in the capable fingers and voice of Perfume Genius, it's Mad World-level hypnotizing.

Review: Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

At lot has changed since the Arcade Fire released Neon Bible in 2007, a cautionary lullaby to a world on the precipice. Perhaps if they were in the studio when Obama won the election, we'd get a happy record out of them. As things stand now; the economy is shit, Haiti is a pile of rubble, and there's 150 million gallons of oil in the Atlantic that weren't there 6 months ago. If you were looking to the Arcade Fire for a philosophical back rub or confirmation that everything will be alright, consider The Suburbs the fourth horsemen of the apocalypse.

From the moment the Arcade Fire establish their mise en scene, it's clearly not a pretty place, apocalyptic themes still in full bloom. In fact, if any playwrights are reading this blog, I'd like to formally submit The Suburbs as the soundtrack for The Road: The Musical*. All jokes aside, The Suburbs is a titanic piece of art, whose theatrics and attention to detail is unparalleled. The lyrics vividly paint a portrait of crumbling cities, ashy sunrises, and abandoned buildings. Despite the somber subject matter, the Arcade Fire sure know how to make Armageddon catchy.  

A mastery of orchestration afford a band the opportunity to take chances and experiment in ways lesser bands cannot. No band has recent memory has done more for the violin (or the glockenspiel for that matter) than the Arcade Fire. No band does so much with so much, sounding larger than life one moment and whisper quiet the next. The Suburbs finds them enriching several songs with electronic cues and aggressive electric guitar riffs that they had never dabbled in prior. As songs build to their logical climaxes, they often lapse into brief detours that find new ways to satisfy. On Ready To Start, the bridge is tempered by a rumbling synth pulse just as it's about to burst. The Coldplay-inspired underwater groans of Rococo have a similar effect, a metaphorical deep breath before taking the final plunge. These moments serve to reinforce what makes The Arcade Fire such a seminal band. Because they have so thoroughly mastered the fundamentals they can afford to add a layer of howling guitar to Empty Room, a song that would have been perfectly agreeable without it, but becomes sadly manic in its presence. And for those who have grown accustomed to the Arcade Fire for their "anthem" fix, there's something here for you too. Modern Man and City With No Children stack up favorably with the strongest tracks on Funeral and Neon Bible, and the gorgeous electric growl of Sprawl II defies explanation.

As expected from a production of this magnitude, Win Butler does not shy away from infusing The Surburbs with a hearty dose of melodrama. But heck, we're talking about the end of the world here. By and large, the lyrics are a tasteful blend of remorse and indignation, sounding more resigned and tired than condemning as they did on Neon Bible. He still harbors a bit of resentment for "the kids", who "want to be so hard" but are "already bored" by the time the first bombs fall. Mercifully, Regine is able to swoop in and take the reigns before Win lapses into too much proselytizing, diluting his venom with the beautiful "Empty Room". The middle portion of the album finds Win turned from curmudgeon to castaway, feeling the nostalgia one feels only after destruction. As he wallows deeper into what he's lost, it is Regine again who saves him with Sprawl II, ending the album on a beautiful and defiant note. 

Remarkably, this whole give and take works quite well, so long as the rest of the group manages to keep things interesting in the background. On songs like The Sprawl (Flatland), the production is so sparse that the Win's lyrics are thrust front and center and sound like the incoherent ramblings of an aged beatnik. In fact, I half expected a "...man" at the end of the last sentence. A similar sore thumb is the bewildering Month of May, an energetic, but minor track that has no place on an album already an hour long. These quibbles should not distract from the fact that The Suburbs is a perfectly sequenced and realized album.

The Suburbs catalogues what it feels like to return home again after years away, and coming to terms with what that means. If Funeral embraced childhood wonder and Neon Bible channeled teenage angst, then The Suburbs finds them fully grown and grappling with the possibility that their best could be behind them. A scary thought when you're scarcely 30. 

"Ready to Start"


"The Suburbs"

*In 3D, of course.

Threadless, Eat Your Heart Out

I've been working on an emblem for The 20 Amsden for quite a while, and last night put the finishing touches on it. I think you'll agree that it captures the essence of the place have known and loved for three years. We are planning a party to commemorate this occasion (keep the last week in August open), where I will be selling T-shirts featuring this design at cost (probably $5-10) for those of you for whom The Twenty Amsden has come to occupy a special place in your hearts. *tear* I have also featured a few other uses for the logo, for the more creative types. Note: If you would like any of these, please give me advance notice (R'OB).

Edit: Mad Props to Jenny B for her help with the fontage.

Yeezy Tweets

Kanye West's Twitter feed is almost enough to make me join Twitter.

Almost.

Disgusting Rat

It's been quite a while since this blog has deviated from its traditional formula, so today I wanted to share a surreal anecdote from Sunday afternoon. SS and I had just started a short bike ride on a route of his choosing, and I was doing my best to keep up with him along the bike path*. The weather was foreboding, but the path was bustling and we were zipping our way past sidewinders and their ilk, having an all-around splendid time.**

Shortly after passing Trader Joe's, I noticed a small Gray Squirrel (Scurius Carolinensis) bounding down the trail in our lane, not more than 30 yards in front of us. As SS saw it first, he managed to gracefully swerve around it and keep going. I, in my prescient glory assumed that if I held my line, this squirrel would concede my dominance and hop on his merry way.*** Well, my friend, do not play chicken with a squirrel.

By the time I got within 20 feet of him, he was no longer moving and had instead chosen to sit on his haunches and stare at me. It was now clear that he wasn't going anywhere and I had no choice but to brake. Of course, in all this commotion I forgot I was clipped into my pedals and had to do a "desperate leg flail" to keep from falling over into the grass. When the dust settled, I had stopped LITERALLY an inch from his eyeball. An inch from his tiny snout and tinier brain. It was like a movie. This is about the time things took a turn for the bizarre.

As long as SS was the only person witnessing this rodent shaming, I was more amused than embarrassed. But this squirrel had other plans for me. As I was concerned for his well being, I took this opportunity to try and shoo him out of the path by wiggling my bike tire back and forth and tapping his arse. No response. In fact, he continued to look at me with a glint of amusement in his eye. Flabbergasted, I decided that if this squirrel had a death wish, who was I to stop him? I got off my bike, lifted it over him, and began to clip in again. At the sight of this, the squirrel instantly did a 180, ran over to my bike, and proceeded to climb in/around my spokes like a miniature jungle gym. SS was laughing further down the trail at my plight, but was more  probably more confused at this point, as it had been nearly 5 minutes since we first encountered the creature.

I managed to intimidate him off my bike with my bike shoes (no small feat), and started walking my bike down the trail at a healthy clip, hoping to get enough of a lead on him that I could clip in and get started before he climbed on again. Of course, people were running/biking all around me during this, and the squirrel was relentlessly hopping after me like Night of the Living Dead. It was emasculating, and strangely terrifying. I began to wonder if the squirrel had rabies and wanted to infect me. I inspected his gait for wobbles and his face for frothing. He seemed normal, but I didn't want to find out first hand. By the time I had gotten a good 30 feet ahead of him, I decided to clip in. Like a teenage girl trying to start her car in a horror movie, I frantically slid my foot all around my pedal trying to get it to clip in, but I was too slow. He had caught me again. This time he was even more curious than before, entangling himself in my bike chain and winding around my frame; all the while staring at me with his cold dead eyes. I had half a mind to walk my bike over to the grass and let him have his way with it and tell SS I would catch up with him later.

Rather than forever be known as the man who lost his bike to a squirrel, I decided to shake the squirrel off one final time and make a run for it. After I pried his little paws off, I ran my bike down the path until I was a hundred feet away from him (he was running again at this point), felt the hearty snap of my shoes in the pedals, and left him in my dust. I asked SS if we could take another route home because I didn't want to deal with him again, or more likely, discover his freshly killed body. If the events that just transpired were any indication, an animal that dumb did not have long left on this fair earth.

Miraculously, we biked out and back without incident and saw no sign of him as we passed the spot again. I theorize that he shacked up with the Albino Squirrel and they are grooming an albino army to take back the bike trail.


* I'm convinced there is something wrong with my bike or my bike shoes or my helmet or something other than me because I cannot keep up with SS whatsoever. He has acknowledged (probably for my pride) that I can make mincemeat out of him on a run.

**As far as "social" exercising goes, I greatly prefer trying to hold a conversation while running over biking. In fact, the only athletic activity harder to converse during is swimming and that's debatable.

***I was once told a horror story from a reputable source that involved someone biking over a squirrel only to have it get tangled up in his chain, causing him to fall over his handlebars and become a paraplegic.****

****SERIOUSLY.

On Repeat: Tennis - Marathon

Sometimes you hear a song once and love it instantly. Such is the case with Denver husband/wife duo Tennis when I heard their debut single "Marathon" a few weeks ago. Girl-group snaps, a burbling organ and a beautiful female voice are briefly ambushed by electric whirs and a snare drum, before relenting for a second verse. They manage to coexist for the 2nd half of the song, somehow reinforcing the personality and adding swagger. Tennis seems to understand that simplicity and melody are important, but there's still room for things to get a little messy if you play your cards right. By proving their merit with the initial melody, they earn themselves the right to tease other sounds and spice things up, so long as they compliment what's already there. More bands need to understand this dichotomy. It doesn't take much to please a listener, and once you have them hooked, they'll follow you anywhere. Just ask Lady Gaga.

Review: Inception

For those who found the visuals of Avatar arresting but the plot flimsy, your wait for a thoroughly satisfying big budget film is over. Fittingly, it comes courtesy of Christopher Nolan who was responsible for the last critically acclaimed summer blockbuster (The Dark Knight). Inception finds him positioning his camera inside dreams, using this foundation as a limitless springboard for action sequences that defy traditional rules and questions that focus their sights on the very nature of happiness and humanity.

In his review, Roger Ebert called Inception "immune to spoilers", citing that the film is not about snippets of plot or twists, but more a product of the journey it takes. Some shards of plot are planted in our subconscious early in the film, only to achieve a new context when their meaning is revealed later on. Other crumbs of plot are unsettling or unintelligible and we are forced to trust Nolan that this will all make sense. Many films revel in ambiguity, often to a fault, relying on their audience to piece together strings of plot independently without any sort of reinforcement that they are on the right track. With Inception, Nolan very nearly goes the other way with it, using the first hour of the film as a glorified tutorial session featuring Dicaprio's Cobb (the "Extractor") tutoring a new "Architect", Ariadne (Ellen Page). Dreams are tricky business, and it stands to reason that there are some rules that need to be made clear before one goes mucking around in other people's minds, but one can't help but wonder if Nolan could have taken a page out of Hitchcock's book of "show don't tell." With that being said, these training sessions lend themselves to some of the most jaw-dropping visuals of the film, speaking to the awesome power of dreams when you can control your mind.

The central conflict of Inception involves the "planting" of an idea into an unwitting victim. Cobb and his team typically do just the opposite, hijacking the subconscious to remove critical information for their clients. His team deems it impossible, but Cobb has an added incentive to make it happen; being reunited with his children. The hiring of his team to enter the dreams of a young heir seems a bit awkward as a plot piece, as does the tagging along of the client Saito (Ken Watanabe) through the adventure. Perhaps if the Inception was done to a Judge or politician with the power to help Cobb reunite with his children with the stroke of a pen, the sense of urgency would have been more realistic. I suppose it would have been harder for him to recruit a team to risk their lives if there wasn't a hefty financial incentive, but the whole set-up of the Inception seemed a bit too convenient.

Regardless of how I felt about the introduction, the final 90 minutes of the film is an incredible ride that careens from perfectly timed event to perfectly timed event, keeping you paralyzed in your seat much in the same way The Dark Knight was able to do with many of The Joker's scenes and action sequences. While the Dark Knight became bogged down in philosophy towards the end, the stakes in Inception are such that you have no time to wax poetic about what you are seeing. There are frequent cuts between different scenes all playing out simultaneously to every character to the point where the term "meta" is insufficient. Once Nolan establishes the rules of his world, you have no choice but to try and keep up, because everything will be on the final.

Nolan's dreamscapes are much like the hidden memories of Joel Barish in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind. Subconscious feelings and unrelated materials cannot be denied during sleep and frequently invade where they do not belong. In Eternal Sunshine, this led to visuals of things shrinking out of sight or merging with other memories. In Inception, Nolan employs an "architect" whose job is to make sure the dreams themselves are as vivid and realistic as possible. I'm sure people were clamoring for more trippy dream visuals, but with such a complicated plot, you're going to have to settle for crumbling buildings and anti-gravity brawls. That's not to say there is a lack of innovation here (far from it, thematically and visually).

While some of the emotional heft of the narrative threatens to shake us out of the thrilling action scenes that sandwich it, the final scenes make the subplot worthwhile and serve as one of the more fitting final frames in recent memory. So rare are the films that manage engage the viewer on this many levels, that Nolan has earned the rare distinction in Hollywood for which budget and script should be of no concern. Give him the tools he needs, and get out of the way.  

This Dashing Canadian Celebrates 70 Years today.

A. Who Is Alex Trebek?

Here's to another 70 Alex. And then another 70 after that hosted by your reanimated cyborg corpse.

Gadget Lust: Panasonic Lumix LX5

What a beautiful chunk of metal and glass. This is the logical sequel to 2008's LX3, Panasonic's venture into the world of high-end Point and Shoot cameras. As Point and Shoot cameras continue to pack features that rival an SLR in a smaller and cheaper package, I think you'll find fewer and fewer people splurging for a $2,000 SLR when they can save $1500 and get one of these without sacrificing much. The most interesting thing about this camera is that it signals an end to the Megapixel war; the inane pissing match between Camera manufacturers that involved them slapping a few extra megapixels on every new camera iteration rather than making any improvement to the guts. The LX5 has only 10 megapixels (the same number it has had for the last 3 models), but has made vast improvements under the hood. New Leica lens, new screen, improved battery life, wider angle lens, faster shutter speed, higher ISO. All significant advances that actually improve image quality, rather than stuffing more pixels into a dark, blurry photo.

I used to be a big Canon fan, until I resolved to find a camera with three criteria that Canon couldn't offer (at the time). Optical Image Stabilization, HD Video, High Optical Zoom lens. Canon had a few offerings, but none of them could compare to the Panasonic TZ5 that I ended up buying and love as much as man can reasonably love an inanimate object.

Nowadays there are newer versions of the camera as well as Panasonic's most recent entry into the Micro Four Thirds arena, the drool-worthy GF1. At $600-800, this SLR is probably the first thing I would buy if I won the lottery. Well, the GF1 and these.

Review: Best Coast - Crazy For You

1. Want (26)

2. End (24)

3. Just (23)

4. Miss (20)

5. Love (19)

6. Ooh (16)

7. La (16)

8. Crazy (16)

Above are the results of processing the Best Coast's lyrics through a word counter. Over 31 minutes and 13 tracks, they are the most prevalent words and a thorough synopsis of the subject matter on "Crazy For You". Every song serves to further gray the line between love balladry and stalker anthem, but by the end I'm reasonably sure I'm terrified of Bethany Cosentino (lead singer/lyricist). 

While the breezy tracks of her early EPs and singles buried her summery voice under fuzz and reverb, the lyrics that you could make out embraced this philosophy, spreading the beach-warmed melodies and simplicity. With "Crazy For You", her voice is cleaner and the production brighter, but the lyrics reflect something deeper beneath the waves. 

Perhaps the most unsettling part of the album is that it's nearly impossible to tell who she is pining for. Like a lustful teenager, the songs find her caterwauling "All I do is think about you all of the time" and "Every time you leave this house, everything falls apart", painting scenes of her as Betty Draper, thoroughly helpless and counting the minutes until her husband walks in the door and her world can begin to spin again. Other songs have her conceding "Maybe I'm just crazy" and "I want to kill you but I'd miss you", casting a Kathy-Bates-in-Misery shaped cloud over everything and you begin to wonder if the subject of these songs even exists. 

It would be easy to dismiss on these accounts, but the lyrics notwithstanding, there is some really great Beach Boy channeling going on here. Lead single "Boyfriend" bolsters a wholesome love song with charming background Ooh's and Aah's and a guitar riff that would make Dick Dale proud. Likewise, "Bratty B" finds Cosentino finding her inner girl-group, with a chorus that begs for hand claps and hip-swaying. Despite an exceedingly simple formula, Best Coast spans several genres, not afraid to go to darker places or slow things down when the song calls for it.

Truth be told, the album as a whole is light enough and catchy enough to overlook the disconcerting parts and enjoy the album for what it is; a collection of love letters fed through a Motown-era reverb machine. I just hope her boyfriend can finagle a spot in the witness protection program should he ever decide pull the plug. 

On Repeat: Shad - Rose Garden

Who'd've thought Canada was the next hip-hop stronghold? With Drake beyond huge, it's only fitting that people take a closer look at what Canada has to offer. If Shad is what's hiding up in the Great White North, Jive records should be swarming Ontario. Shad (real name Shadrach Kabango) hails from London, Ontario by way of Kenya. He's one of those hyper-literate rappers who pummels you with obscure references and wordplay that dares you to hit pause every 15 seconds to try and keep up. More than simply being a know-it-all, Shad isn't one to shy away from controversy or touchy subjects, having addressed Rwandan genocide and the Bible on recent albums. His newest single "Rose Garden" is none of the above.

Re-cutting a vague country sample and repositioning it as his chorus, Shad fuses Motown and big band production, skittering a brass section and a hodgepodge of other instrumentation behind his textbook verses. If the initial sample wasn't seductive enough, the true chorus slows matters down a bit and allows Shad (and us) to catch our breath. It's the next verse that Shad displays what makes him such a singular talent.


"I'm not in the zone, there's too much in the way
I weigh two bucks and if I had two slugs to spray like: RAH RAH,
Glenn Beck better duck like Foie Gras
Make shots poke his face like Gaga,
But mama says forgive,
So I'll give him that bar like a Mars and let him live.

The missing saga continues, ranting
While my DJ's lamping like Green Lantern, sampling
Mansions? Nah, I ain't rich as Richard Branson
I'm King Kong meets Vince Vaughn and I play like a champion
In my Monday ball league? Nah B, all week
Seven days of black power naps every forty eight half hours
That's twenty four star Jack Bauer
Can't cower when the rain falls
And it falls whether you're Gandhi or you're Adolf"


More than just simple name-dropping and pop-culture references, there's mature anger here playing amongst the chest pounding and soap-boxing. Too many rappers use a nifty reference to round out a verse or to elicit a chuckle and cast them aside. Shad is more intuitive than that; wrapping his larger message in a blanket of pop culture and puns. More rap needs a message behind it. That it happens to be great and unfathomably catchy is just gravy. The music video is awesome too, check it out below.