Shining White Revue #2

In case you missed this last time, I give my boy Jay three songs to review without telling him what they are and he gives his NO HOLDS BARRED opinion on them. Also, Jay knows around 3% of what the common internet rap nerd knows about hip hop, which makes the whole thing interesting to me. -- Mike Dikk

Song 1: Lupe Fiasco - Superstar

Jay Pud: This reminds me of something—of Lupe Fiasco, who I think it is. I dig it a lot when the Maroon five sounding guy isn’t singing, but I’m predisposed of liking people who rap like this. It’s kind of—unpretentious sounding I guess. Maybe it’s actually Bono or some shit. I don’t know. I dig it. Call me gay for it, I don’t really care too much. This is the type of thing that I can listen to without feeling like a douchebag when I pull up next to a black guy. Although, less because of the chorus. The chorus would make me feel like a dick because it’s kind of like “Hey, I can bump this shit because it has a white dude in it so I have some small kind of ownership over it,” so for that sake, I kind of wish Boner wasn’t singing on the chorus. How can I be a deep, true rap appreciating white dude when I can’t even go three minutes without a white dude singing over beats? I wish I had the motivation to try.

Song 2: Mike Jones - Turnin' Heads

Jay Pud: Fuck. I hate Mike for this shit. I reviewed this song last week but he said superman instead of turning heads. This is a cliché. A super duper cliché of all that I can’t stand about rap music—right down to that stupid Mike Jones effect on that microphone during the chorus. “They used to laugh at my belly now they wanna rub on belly, something something else—“ fucking stupid. I think I’m missing the gene that makes me comprehend shit like this. Maybe it’s because if I saw whoever this was in the streets I’d be scared. I guess I’m supposed to like the club banging beat, but it just sounds like the shitty instrumentals in some crappy video game. I bet when I see who this is, he’s gonna have lots of tattoos, lots of shiny stuff, and a towel. I don’t know why the towel, I guess rappers from down south must sweat a lot or some shit because it’s hot. Maybe it’s just a part of southern life—me making the assumption that this is from the south—that you have to carry a towel around, so I don’t wanna say it’s strictly a rap thing, but I never see country musicians with towels. But they have big hats so maybe they don’t need to wipe the sweat from their brows. Either way…garbage.

Song 3: Jay-Z feat. Pharell - Blue Magic

Jay Pud: Isn’t Jay-Z supposed to retired? Here’s where you can enter your own stupid Michael Jordan joke, or whatever you have on tap. This is what it is. I can’t say that I’d ever listen to this song if I had it on my ipod, and I have a bunch of Jay-Z on it. His songs vary from good, to really good, to feeding himself a spoonful of ego filet on a platinum, diamond encrusted spoon. I’m listening to this for the third straight time as I write this review, and here is my prediction for it: black people will like it, white people who like to pretend to be black will love it, girls will like it, and I will not like it. There’s something about having a dude singing over the chorus, as happens in some form or another in all three of these songs, which strikes me as incredibly gay. I don’t mean in a sissy kind of way, I mean in butt sex kind of way. This song is kind of the worst of the three in that sense, because the dude just reminds me of my father singing, and my father sings like a tone def Huey Lewis with no musical timing whatsoever. Either way, I’m glad I can stop listening to this song now.