God bless America, Ludacris has made a comeback. My friends and other middle to upper-middle class white twenty-somethings are rejoicing everywhere. We did, after all, grow up with Ludacris. He held all of our undergraduate anthems like: "Move", "What's Your Fantasy", and "Money Maker".
Can't you just see a frat boy with a dirtied, off-white backwards cap cruising around campus right now thinking he is the SHIZ-NIT!?
You think I'm kidding, but alas, I am not.
Anyways, so imagine my GLEE (it's only a matter of time before that show gets its hands on some Luda) when I turn on the radio (after my Lenten hiatus) and hear that Luda is EVERYWHERE. The pop stations. R&B stations. If he'd made a rock or country song, he'd BE THERE.
And I love Luda because he has a way with words like no one else. Maybe Eminem. But Eminem is SO. SERIOUS.
In the words of The Joker, Why So Serious??
Luda, however, is famous for lyrics like the above quote and also gems like these from his latest: "My Chick Bad"
"My chick bad, tell me if you seen her, She always bring the racket like Venus and Serena"
and
"She knock a b**** out annnnd fight. Coming out swinging like Tiger Woods' wife"
See what he did there? Pop culture references for the win. Clever, my friend, Luda. Always Clever.
It kind of reminds me of Lil' Wayne's gem in my #songIhavenoreasontolike from long ago- "Down":
"'Cause honestly I'm down like the economy"
Cultural relevance for the win! I love it.
Now the rest of Luda's "My Chick Bad" is not quite as clever or classy:
"And when we all alone, I might just tip her. She slides down the pole, like a certified stripper"
Come on, Luda! You are better than that. You are not just Ludacris from "Area Codes" you are also Chris Bridges from Oscar winning films like Crash!
But your song "Ho" is still clever and awesome, albeit not classy, so we will give it to you:
"Why you think you take a ho to a ho-tel?...Reach up in the sky for the ho-zone layer
Ah, it kills me ;)
I would also like to take this opportunity to discuss the recent developments in hip-hop pop vocabulary. It occurred to me just the other day that hip-hop-poppers are starting to get a little more verbose (or are at least using a thesaurus. I mean, I would. Not all of us can rhyme "tip her" and "stripper" all the time...)
Take for example another Luda-colabo: Taio Cruz's "Break Your Heart" (and for the record, while this is a somewhat arrogant message on Mr.Cruz's part- "I'm only going to break-break, oh break-break your heart"- at least the dude's honest):
"No point trying to hide it. No point trying to evade it"
I don't know why, but I love that they use the word evade there. It would be a high scoring word in Scrabble, right? (Maybe not, I never play Scrabble). And while I'm pretty sure "evade" is just another fancy way of saying exactly what Taio just said, kudos for using a new vocab word.
Unlike Sean Kingston in "Eenie Meenie" (with Justin Beiber- SWOON!) who literally just re-instates what he just. said. :
"She's indecisive. She can't decide."
Yup, that's what indecisive means, Sean. No creativity points for you.
You know Luda would've come up with some culturally relevant way of saying it. I can see it now:
"She's as indecisive as Prince with his name change"
...clearly I'm not Ludacris. Don't worry, I won't quit my day job. Sigh. If only...
Peace,
Julia
