award tour

As long as it’s still April 1st, go to youtube and check out any of the featured videos.

To be tricked, through any method, into clicking a link that takes you to the Rick Astley video “Never Gonna Give You Up”

For example: “Hey! Check out this crazy video of guys who can fly with hammerpants!”

Ah the wonders of the internet. The Rick Astley video in question has been watched over 3 million times on youtube. It’s in wikipedia and the urban dictionary has probably a hundred definitions. It’s actually worth watching the whole video through as some of the dance moves at the end are priceless.

A month or two ago, Ram pointed out a metafilter post which mentioned that it was the 20th anniversary of gangster rap group NWA. The post pointed out a 1991 article from Time Magazine which was trying to convey to America what could be heard on an NWA record. Even after hearing the song Straight Outta Compton a couple hundred times, I still am in awe of how fucking incendiary it is.

And after watching the video again, I can’t help but think of a hypothetical meeting, circa 1991, of white middle-class Americans put on by some organization which has some combination of “family”, “value”, and “parental” in it’s title. At this meeting these white people will discuss the topic of gangster rap. I can only imagine what Jane Doe from Missouri would have thought when they queued up the video for Straight Outta Compton. I can’t confirm it, but I think it would go something like this…

• 00:03: “this doesn’t seem so bad, at least that black man used the word ‘knowledge’…”
• 00:04: “hmmm, that gang of young black men don’t look very nice”
• 00:05: The songs simple drum machine beat becomes overwhelmed by a droning horn which itself alone could warrant the Parents Music Resource Center’s “Explicit Lyrics” label. But even that has to take a backseat to the image of a very angry Ice Cube
• 01:20: by this point, Ice Cube has essentially scared the shit out of these people by informing them that he is a “crazy as fuck […] nigger with attitude” and will, at a moments notice, kill people with his preferred weapon of choice: the sawed-off shotgun or an AK-47. In just over a minute he has said “ass” twice, and “fuck” three times (not including the additional five times he said “motherfucker”). At this point someone in the room has literally shit a brick
• 02:43: MC Ren, though not as angry as Ice Cube, has also informed the group of what he thinks about “bitches”, “sluts” and “dirty ass hos”. Though this was shocking, the crowd is somewhat alleviated by the fact that, in the video, the police have apprehended these hoodlums. They reflect on how glad they are that their TV and VCR won’t be stolen that night and wonder if maybe, just maybe, this video will show the consequences of gang life.
• 02:54: Easy E hits the screen and all bets are now off
• 03:02: While sitting up in a convertible car, taunting the police, Easy E, in his incredibly pronounced and nasally voice, has just let us know that he “is a brotha that’ll smother yo’ mother and make ya sister think I love her. Dangerous motherfucker raises hell. And if I ever get caught I make bail. See, I don’t give a fuck, that’s the problem”. At this point, the room might have exploded.