Intro

Good morning! Welcome to Rap 101. Professor Hieronymous P. Finch here, at your service (or "Finchie," as they call me around here: as in, har har har.) I'm actually a philosophy professor, of course, but I'll be filling in today for Professor Snoop Daddy P., who is off at some academic conference about "Rap and Sexism" or whatever. I forget the exact title -- something like "21st-Century Hiphop and the Paradigmatic Ho." (What exactly is a ho, anyway? Wait: don't tell me! I'm sure I don't want to know!)

Anyway, Charles (I mean, Snoop Daddy P.) asked me to go over the lyrics of this week's top 3 rap songs according to Billboard magazine -- so if you'll get out your charts for the week ending October 11, 2003, we'll begin. (Incidentally, I'm looking forward to this myself, because I've never understood rap lyrics before, and now I can just read them off of today's teacher's guide. I'll finally get some notion of what you lot are listening to as you go weaving down the hallways with your Walkmans, somberly bobbing your adolescent heads in decided agreement with the esthetic "import" of these ditties. )

Analysis: "Stand Up"

Let's see, then. This week's third most popular rap song is apparently "Stand Up," by... Ludacris? featuring.... Shawnna? (Whatever.) And I quote:

Stand up! Stand up! Stand up! Stand up!

Well, that's straightforward enough: Stand up, for heaven's sake! (Young man, you're late. Robert, isn't it? Well, well: take a seat -- and do stop lumbering about like that: you're going to do your back a mischief at long last with that bad posture.) Now, where were we?

Oh, right. We've just been admonished to "stand up," whereupon we read:

When I move, you move (just like that?)

Aha! The dialectic is firmly established here, as the student's parenthetical query implies the latter's voluntary yielding to the rapper-cum-teacher in matters of dance etiquette. (Robert, be so good as to sit up in that desk -- and do pull those excessively baggy jeans of yours up a little higher -- belly-button level, if you please, sir.... Honestly, I sometimes wonder what slovenly bore was at the helm of public education in the United States when the dress code minimum deteriorated to mere underpants! Indeed, I want a bipartisan congressional panel to find out who knew what, when....

Senator: Now, Mr. Jones, you were Superintendent of your local county's schools during the time in question. How could you possibly not know that underwear was being flaunted under your watch?

Jones: Do you the mean elastic bands --

Senator: No, sir, I do not. I mean a good two or three inches of the white cotton itself! Jones: Naturally, I heard rumors --

Senator: Rumors, sir? Permit me to suggest, sir, that you got an eyeful on many occasions -- and what's more, it was your solemn duty as a stuffy old administrator to nip that disturbing trend in the cotton/polyester bud!

Hell yeah! Hey DJ bringthat back!

The plot thickens: Who is this DJ --and what has he or she stolen, the dog? Ha ha! (There will be a test on this, you know.)

How you ain't gon' f---b----- out me?I'm the G--- d---- reason you in VIP --

Analysis: "Right Thurr"

Right,well, that's enough of that song. Let's move on to song numbertwo so we can finish before the bell rings. This is called "Right Thurr"by the no-doubt delightful group called Chingy. (Robert, headoff the desk, young man. I'm not going to tell you again. --Well, I might tell you two or three more times, but only to getmy mind off these -- ahem! -- "interesting" lyrics,shall we say?)


Uhn...ay dirty (What?)look at that girl right there,ooh she make me say Oh, oh, oh, oh, do what you do.... Hmm.... Well, fine: The author is clearlyreveling in the joys attendant upon the corporeal realm. In specific,it seems that some "fine young thing" (to use the rapper'sown terminology) is shaking its "booty" to good effect,no doubt in curvaceous time to some "righteous groove,"so to say, perhaps the very song that we are just now analyzing.

I like the way you do that right there (right there),switch ya hips when ya walking, let down ya hair (down ya hair)

Well, there's no doubt many layers ofmeaning woven into those latter lines (I count five right offthe bat), but there's clearly an element of raw desire at workhere, a subtext of sensual urgency on the part of the rapper,made manifest in his apparently heartfelt objurgations for thelove interest to "Switch ya hips," "let down yahair," and, several unctuous lines later, to "Lickya lips." Incidentally, if any ladies in this classroomfind this stuff offensive, I'd be more than happy to move onto song number 1 right this instant (in the no-doubt vain hopethat its lyrics will be any less misogynistic). No? You sure?

Senator: Secretary Clabenshaw, just answer the question, please: When did you first notice students trundling into the Principal's office wearing blatantly exposed underwear?

Clabenshaw: With respect, sir, could you define "blatantly exposed"?

Senator: Well, let's say 2 inches of whiteness: right in your face! Clabenshaw: Um, I'm trying to estimate here, sir, um...

Senator: This isn't rocket science, madam secretary! And DO stop whispering with your counsel there. He's not going to remember this stuff for you! Yes or no: did your jaw not positively drop to the floor during the school season in question in response to the blatant and apparently unchecked impropriety of radical drawer positioning in the 1999-2000 school year?!!

Clabenshaw: Uh, my lawyer has advised me to take the fifth.

Okay, then, once more into the breach:

Look at her hips, BUT, look at her legs, aint she stacked? I shole wouldn't mind hittin that from --

Analysis: "Shake Ya Tailfeather"

Okay, that's it: we're moving on to song number 1:"Shake Ya Tailfeather" by.... let's see here.... a fella (or lady?) called Nelly, plus P. Diddy and one Murphy Lee.Now, just to set this one up, it says here that the song starts with the communal intonation of the Atlanta Braves "tomahawk chop" -- which, I suppose, is objectionable in its own right these days, huh? Again, I'd be happy to skip the analysis of these lyrics if anyone's offended. No? (Rats.)Okay, let's check out the lyrics then (sigh!):

First "Nelly" apparently "kicks it" after this fashion in verse number one:

Do it for fun We just do it for fun Dirty E.A.T. We do it for fun Bad BoyI see. I'm not even going to ask what E.A.T. stands for. We do it for fun (This is history baby) Bend them trucks We do it for fun (haha) Stack them bucks

Well, these lyrics are downright obscure compared to those of our previous hits, wherein the rappers seemed to pride themselves on the straightforwardness of their sensual desiderata. Nevertheless, the words in this case speak to an atmosphere of conscience-free hedonism, which might be said to fall under the hip-hop rubric of "living large." (Psst! Robert: Head off the desk -- and jeans in the full upright position! Honestly, I'm not going to tell you too many more times!)

Anyway, Nelly continues verse one of "Shake Ya Tailfeather" with a series of increasingly impertinent questions:

Hey girl What your name is? Where you from? Turn around who you came with? Is that your ass or your momma have reindeer?

What? Now, Nelly, that's not nice! Humph: Just for that, we're going to skip your verse in this song and move on to P. Diddy's lyrics:

Now real girls get down on the floor (on the floor) Get that money honey act like you know (like you know) Mama I like how you dance The way you fit in them pants (Uh)

Now that's more like it. (Well, A LITTLE more like it, anyway.) After all, the esthetic sense is always gratified by the observation of a properly fitting and well-chosen article of clothing, evocative as it is of the Aristotelian mean: conducing to modesty by literally obscuring the body yet stoking desire through an implicit appeal to the imagination of the observer -- especially when the girl in question is "stacked." (That's what the teacher's guide says anyway, though it's by no means clear to me that the Greek philosopher would have added that final stipulation.)

Enter the floor (Uh) take it low (Uh) girl do it again (Uh)

I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen (teachers guide or no teachers guide) that P. Diddy is a cheeky monkey!

Now, where them girls at?(Them girls? Grammar, people, grammar!) You got to love it in the dresses, the sexiest I had to tell her she's a young Janet Jackson live in living color

Aw, now that's kind of sweet: likening the beloved to Janet Jackson.

Look here momma you're dead wrong for having them pants on Capri's cut low so when you shake it I see your thong

All right, P. Diddy -- that's enough of that. (See your thong, indeed!) Let's move on to verse three by what-cha-call-him, Murphy Lee:

Yo, I'm the big booty type I like them thick with their mind rightI see.

Big booty type, huh? Well, I admit, that sounds a little crude to these Puritan ears of mine -- still, it may just be Murphy's awkward way of reiterating the age-old truth: that "booty" is only skin deep. (Get it, everyone: booty is only skin deep? Ha ha! Ahem....)

Banging personality conversate when the time right (Naw)

Let's keep moving, shall we?

I'm not hard I've got women to handle that They be like he the man when I'm really a Thundercat

Jeez, I'd like to find at least one lyric in this song that I wouldn't blush to explicate.

More Highly Funkified Rap Lectures... Deconstructing the Rapper Hips Don't Lie Lip Gloss Rap 101

Let's jump to the bridge in the slim hope that it will esthetically redeem the macho banter of the preceding verses:

Chorus

Nelly

Let me see you take it off

P. D.

Girl go and take it off

Nelly

We can even do it slow

P. D.

We can even do it slow

Nelly

Take it where you want to go

P. D.

Take it where you want to go

Nelly

Just take that ass to the floor

Outro

(Sigh!) So that's what you lot are listening to as you weave through the hallways (with premeditatedly poor posture, I dare say) in your oversized sweatshirts, murmuring "Hey, G." or "Hey, Dawg," or whatever, as your equally groovy homeboys strut by in a similar state of somber musical hypnosis. I see, I see. (No, no: that's fine. I'm just sayin'....)

Senator: Mr. Chairman,I'd like to introduce a new witness, who I trust will shed somelight on this matter. Would Janitor Wethersby please come forward?

Crowd: Gasp!

News Commentator, whispering: This is the actual janitor at the school where both Clabenshawand Jones work! This could be a bombshell.

Senator: Now then, Mr.Wethersby, I suppose you see students every day in your job asjanitor at your public high school.

Wethersby: That's right,your honor.

Senator: Have YOU noticedan increasing tendency on the part of male students in particularto willfully expose their undergarments as a sort of apparentfashion statement? and I'm particularly interested in the upper two to three inches of the rear portion of their y-fronts.

Wethersby: Y-fronts,your honor?

Senator: Oh, I'm sorry. I spent a lot of time in Britain as a child, where we called them y-fronts, but we Americans generally refer to them as underwear or, indeed, ahem! "underpants," if you prefer.

Wethersby: Well, gentlemen,I hate to say anything that may cast doubt on the veracity of my employers --

Senator: Out with it, Sir: What did you see and when did you see it?!

Wethersby: I...

Senator: Yes, yes?!

Wethersby: I'm afraid I did see the underwear of which you speak.

Senator: Aha! Beginning when?

Wethersby: Oh, I'd sayas early as the 2002 school season, possibly before that.

Senator: And were thesesightings frequent? That is to say, could a school employee (say a principal or a secretary, for instance) have failed to noticethis blatant violation of dress codes on a daily basis?

Wethersby: I can't speakfor others, sir, but --

Senator: But you yourselfsaw it regularly, did you not? On a daily basis, even?

Wethersby: Well, yes...

Senator: No further questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mind you, I hate to judge, but aren't these rap songs of yours expressive of a hedonistic life style which reduces esthetics to sense data and makes a summa bonum out of material gain? I mean, hello? Do the words "sordid boon" mean anything to you guys? For verily, What doth it profit a man if he gains his own "Holidae In" filled with righteous and willing "babes" (not to mention heaps of expensive jewelry and wads of cash on which the faces of Ben Franklin and Andrew Jackson predominate) yet loseth his own soul? But one can't judge (Principal Beetlebaum says so): especially when the class bell is going to ring in 5 (make that 4) seconds.... Psst! Robert, head off the desk! I'm not going to tell you again!

Indeed, I can't tell you again, since this class is now officially over. As in, class dismissed. That's right, you lot, lumber on out of here in those baggy jeans of your'n. Charles (I mean, Snoop Daddy P.) will be back next week (thank goodness!) (Honestly, these lyrics are a positive scandal: "See your thong," indeed! The very idea!)