Angst(er) Rap? No thanks, Lil Wayne.

I recently discovered, much to my horror, Lil Wayne's new(ish) single "Prom Queen". Click on the link and watch the music video if you haven't already, you'll have more sympathy for my ensuing tirade.

It's apparantly a #15 billboard chart topper that debuted on Jimmy Kimmel Live back in Januaray, but it's off his new album coming out this August (see the wikipedia article). Typically, I really enjoy consuming Lil Wayne's music. What, with such great hits as "Stuntin' Like My Daddy", "We Takin' Over" (DJ Khaled), and "Lollipop", it's hard to deny Lil Wayne's charming mainstream rap bankability. However, "Prom Queen" imho is an unwelcome foray into the nether regions of rock/hip-hop fusion (read: Pharrel and NERD) and cross-demographic espionage. I hope to devote some attention to the latter, in two forthcoming posts about mainstream rap's often absurd lyrics and the insidious caricature mainstream hip hop is today (and why I feel duped).

I'll admit: when I'm driving to a party on a Saturday night I "need me some" Lil Wayne to hype the mood and get in the groove. I can more than tolerate Lil Wayne's highly nasal rapping voice, belting out limericks about hot hoes ("Hoes"), menstrual issues (listen to the extremly catchy "A Milli"), and lollipop licking (from the eponymous, "Lollipop"). But if and when Prom Queen resurafces on the 94.9 & KMEL 106.1 airwaves, I will cringe and switch over to one of my other presets (NPR).

In trying to seem fresh and versatile, Prom Queen instead noisly rehashes an age-old, teen-angst drama. Nerdy high school kid is infatuated with hot uber-girl, unrequited love ensues, he becomes famous while she languishes in squalor. The music video for Prom Queen might have catalyzed my atypically violent reaction to this type of song. It's boring and unoriginal. Unless you feel that the following are avante-garde: Lil Wayne in thick framed, taped in the middle, glasses and Lil Wayne wailing on electric guitar (they only seem to show his body in that shot, who's his guitar weliding stunt double, I wonder?) It's kind of like that recent Chris Brown song about a nerd and his high school fantasy girl, except that the nerdy Chris Brown gets his girl and the music video doesn't take itself too seriously, has great dance choreography, and is otherwise highly entertaining. Oh and it also contains the "Auto-tune" effect that we've all grown to love in our mainstream rap music (thank you very much Cher and T Pain).

When Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters commented on his love ballad "Big Me" he apparantly said, "Everybody has to have their pop crap token love song... you know you know boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl tells boy to fuck off!" When he said "everybody" I'm fairly certain the esteemed Mr. Grohl did not have Mr. Wayne in mind. BTW the Big Me video is a great spoof on those 90's Mentos commercials.

If Prom Queen is emblematic of the new album, I might have to say no thanks to Mr. Wayne. Even though he's trying really hard to reach out to me and my demographic by getting revenge on the girl that broke his heart in high school, rapping a tribute to the beastie boys, and laying a verse over instrumentation that "sounds" like Coldplay's Viva La Vida... I must (dis)repsectfully pass. The only rapper who's allowed to crossover and morph gangster rap into rock and roll infused "angster" rap is Tupac Shakur (think the posthumously released"Changes"), but then again he could pretty much get away with anything and I'd love it.

And for those of you who instantly recognized my inccorect use of "eponymous" in the second paragraph - your talents would be better spent figuring out ways to improve mainstream hip hop's horrendous grammar and diction. Ok, I'm just playin' I don't want the diction to change. (someday we'll all look back on this and say: yay for malapropistic easter eggs)