Had my first bartending experience tonight, a supervised shift at Grape Street as a culmination to Mainline's program. There's really not a whole lot to tell except that I enjoyed it and think this is something I could keep doing. Tips seem exciting.
On the way home I was flipping through the radio when what I can only assume is a new single from Black Eyed Peas came on. Now I must explain my relationship with hip hop. I like hip hop but not enough to listen to it. 96.5 is not one of my preset stations but I do flip to it when I scan the dial, mostly because I know there's a slim chance that at any given time they might be playing something by Eminem, but other than that I normally don't listen to them. Still, every now and then I'll hear something that makes me leave them on, and invariably it turns out to be by the Black Eyed Peas. Tonight was no exception.
You know the hot, slightly pudgy blonde girl in the group? The one with the amazingly rich voice that gets so underused for lines such as "La, la, la, la" in "Let's Get it Started?" She's the primary singer for this song, except she raps. And she does so quite well. To explain I'm going to have to quote from the song to show just what it is that she's overcoming:
They say I’m really sexy,
The boys they wanna sex me.
They always standing next to me,
Always dancing next to me,
Tryin’ a feel my hump, hump.
Lookin’ at my lump, lump.
U can look but you can’t touch it,
If u touch it I’ma start some drama,
You don’t want no drama,
No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama
So don’t pull on my hand boy,
You ain’t my man, boy,
I’m just tryn’a dance boy,
And move my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My lovely lady lumpsThese are pretty terrible lyrics. They have no natural flow, word choice is fairly banal, rhymes are often forced, and while I understand that the song is titled "My Humps," that doesn't mean it's a good line, just a bad title.
In spite of this, blonde girl (I'm looking but I can't find her name) absolutely pulls them through. Ironically, the "My lovely lady lumps" line comes across as terribly sensual. Despite the agressiveness of the lyrics, her tone of voice, including an accentuated melodic quality, gives her a sense of overwhelming femininity. The result is a depiction of a woman who openly celebrates not just her sexuality, as the lyrics assert, but her sense of being a woman. It is one of the most personally powerful pieces of hip hop I've ever heard.
A brief sample can be heard at
Artist Direct, but doesn't begin to do the song justice.
