Shining White Revue #5

Mike Dikk: After a long hiatus, Shining White Revue is back. This is the part of the blog where I give my friend Jay some rap songs to review, but I don't tell him what they are. Since he doesn't know his asshole from his elbow when it comes to rap music, it produces interesting results. Jay has also started his own blog called Dastardly Latchkey, if you want to read stuff where he actually knows what he's talking about.

Song 1: EMC - We Alright

Jay: I think this guy read my diary. I can identify with pretty much everything he’s saying, and that’s further evidence that I would make a crappy rapper. I don’t know if I appreciate the sincerity, dislike the contrived sincerity, or want to eat the summer seasoned cod I can smell from my oven. I think it’s the fish first with the other 2 tied for second. I do get a feeling that this may be Jesus Rap.
I think I’m actually impressed that this dude made a song about pretty much breaking slightly ahead of even. If this were my song I’d have a line that went something like, “What it feel like when you fuck a girl with herpes. Then it’s okay because you didn’t catch the herpes.” I mean, I appreciate the sentiment of this song, but fuck it, I don’t want to be completely identified with. I want the identifying to sneak up on me like a fucking ninja Brownie selling cookies and shit. At first, I want to be a little put off and creeped out, and then I want to subtly realize that ‘Hey, we’re all brownies in this world—just a bunch of Brownies hustling cookies, trying to spray that cheese on our crackers.’
These guys are into Jesus. They have to be. Fuck them. That’s how those Jesus fucks get you: they tell you everything you want to hear, how they couldn’t pay the bills, and how their boss was a dick, and how they sucked at basketball, and then found God and everything changed. I don’t like it when they give me The Watchtower or Awake, and I don’t like it when they sneak their love for the lord into rap songs.

Song 2: Torae - Callin' Me

Jay: I don’t know what the sample is from in this song, but I think it’s fucking Michael McDonald, which automatically makes this song a joke even if I am wrong. I’m assuming everybody looking at this is internet savvy enough to have seen Yacht Rock, and that means you know what I’m talking about. I don’t even hear what this guy is rapping about because I just keep listening to the sample, thinking of the dude from Yacht Rock who played Michael McDonald with a headset on, singing these smooth lyrics around a bunch of g’d out fuckwads who are all like, “We’re gonna come with that Michael McDonald shit and blow this bitch out of the water. Pass the dro cuz it’s about to get smooth as fuck in here and I need a slightly sedating hallucinogenic to calm my nerves. I can really use a massage, so do you think we can order one of those Chinese girls that work in the spa? You know, like room service? Do they do that? Can I order a massage over the phone?”
Anyways, another trend in rap that sucks, and I’m not sure gets much recognition as its own type of jammy jam, is the ‘I keep trying to quit doing/selling crack/weed/hoes but they keep pulling me back in because I was so good at it that they offered me this huge raise and I just couldn’t refuse’ song. I’m sick of that song. Here’s my message to whoever this is: I don’t give a fuck about your rapping, and I don’t really think you’re that good of a crack dealer/doer (whichever it is), so maybe you should just walk away and stop hanging out with the people who keep on pulling you back in, like other crack dealers. They are obviously a bad influence. Maybe you should apply at the post office, or even at UPS if you don’t mind working a condensed shift. I hear they have great benefits.
Also, again with the Nas shit. Nas should make it so he gets paid a dollar for every time someone mentions his name and his last album title in a song or interview. He’d have like… 200 bucks, easy.

Song 3: Solaris Earth Pipeline - Good & Formulaic (demo)

Jay: This is awesome. THIS GUY KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT! READ THE FIRST REVIEW! The beat is insane, and lyrically I don’t know exactly what he’s talking about because I’m typing as I write it, but he said something to the effect of ‘I make you think you’re a part of my crew. That’s what I do,’ but much more cleverly, or at least in tune with the song. I can’t even make fun of this. Sorry. I cannot wait to find out who it is so I can steal it.
It’s going to be awesome when Mike tells me that this is Snow or some shit. Then, I’m either going to have to write a note in my next review saying “Dudes, I was totally joking. That shit was wack. It was reverse psychology I was running on you. LOL,” or I’m going to have to be like, “Fuck it, guys, I like Snow. I can man up and admit it because I am an idiosyncratic dude who can like gay shit because I fess up to the gay shit I like and that exempts me from being gay because I get the joke, am sort of in on it, but am sort of outside of it. So, really, you guys are the ones who suck because I am on a different level.”

Song 4: Cam'Ron - Pass The Dutchie

Jay: Pass the Dutchie. Hahaha. Not really, though. Pass the Dutchie is one of those songs that would be so trite to sample that nobody would ever touch it, but everybody would be like “Yo, we should sample Pass the Dutchie. Nah, fuck that, we’re not twelve.” I can imagine Trick Daddy trying to pull something like this off because he is a borderline retard/idiot savant, but even then, it would be crappy.
I can’t even listen to this. I don’t feel like I’m giving you your fake money’s worth with these last two reviews so I’ll write a little m ore garbage, and maybe then I’ll meet my word-per-cent quota. But I’ll listen to this song throughout so as to keep it all relevant.
I went to a Brownies meeting today. My daughter is a Brownie, and my wife was at work because she is my sugar mama, so I had to take her place in line for Brownie-Mom-Who-Brings-In-Snacks. I walked into the room and found out that my daughter is getting skull fucked by these two overweight soccer moms. First, they have this thing called a triad (or something that sounds like the word triad that my mental dictionary could not match up with a logical definition) which is where they sit all of the little girls in a circle and make them chant some bullshit to the effect of: “We swear allegiance to God, the United States, and to the fucking Brownies who use us as pedophile candy with cookies,” and so on. Then they made them promise to cook a healthy dinner for the family one day this week (my daughter is eight and can’t microwave a fucking Hot Pocket), and then made them make coupons for everyone in their families’ promising to do stuff like clean, or feed an animal or something.
Then the triad broke up and the two fat soccer mom bitches made them go to the table and make the stupid coupons. They left the kids to do their thing, and the brown haired soccer started yelling at her other little daughter who tagged along, while the blonde haired one yelled at her daughter who was a Brownie for making a coupon that said “I will clean my sister’s room every day for a week.”
She said some shit in front of all her little Brownie friends, like, “HAHAHA, yeah right. Try something you’ll actually do. Why would you clean your sister’s room when you can’s even keep your own room clean,” and on and on.
Needless to say, I’m not gonna let my daughter do that shit next year. I’d pull her out now but she wouldn’t understand and my wife wouldn’t go for it. I’m probably going to write a more detailed account on my website sometime, and that’s one of those shameless plugs that’s not meant to be a shameless plug because I’m running out of steam and this fucking Pass the Dutchie song is making me want to eat a bowl of doo doo brown. So, Pudskowt, out.

Shining White Revue #4

Mike Dikk: This is the 4th installment of the ever popular Shining White Revue, where my friend Jay, who has very basic knowledge of rap music reviews todays hits without knowing what they are. You either love it or you hate it by now. I've been sitting on this installment for a while now, so the songs aren't quite as fresh as they were a few weeks ago. Here we go:

Song 1: Little Brother - Good Clothes

Jay Pud: This is pretty fresh. It’s on the opposite note of that Nas song from my last review because I can actually identify with this shit. My dad used to take me to Kmart to get my school clothes, and I’d always end up with those sweatpants hoodies that had sweatpant grey sleeves, but the rest of the shirt was designed in flannel. That sucked because big black people would make fun of me and beat me up, and their stockpile of Kmart clothes jokes was endless. So I’d beg him for some not Kmart clothes. I’d ask him to take me to Bob’s, which, if that place is not in every state, is basically Kmart’s kick-ass older brother with a switchblade and backwards baseball cap. He never did until I was about sixteen, and then I upgraded from Martha Stewart to Carhartt, but I had much less clothes. And he also bought me Xavier Macdaniel shoes which came with a free basketball, and Converse Allstars which pretty much sealed my fate. Also, we had a neighbor with 2 boys who were two years older than my brother and I, and they used to give us garbage bags of their old Kmart garbage, and so we’d have to walk around with them fully knowing that we were little scrotum kids, wearing clothes that they probably jerked off on and took doodoo’s on. Anyways, this song is good on that note, but I am sick of it now because I listened to it four times in a row and I’m tired of the beat.
On a side note, I have to talk about something that happened to me back in them days. My dad had a green Carhartt jacket that I stole one day because I had some ugly ass Kmart shit and I was sick of getting made fun of. So anyways, I lost the jacket, which I just accounted to either A) my habit of losing shit, or B) someone stealing it from me at school because I used to leave my locker open for general use amongst girls and some of my friends, or C) I left it in Mike’s room where if something disappeared, it was usually forever. About 6 months later my dad beat my ass when he figured out that the jacket was gone and I confessed like the fuckwad that I was. About a month after that, Mike started walking around with the same jacket that he “Bought from Bob’s.” Fucking bullshit.

Song 2: Ghostface feat. Kid Capri - Celebrate

Jay Pud: Okay, first off, I can respect that he’s announcing that he wants to celebrate. I love to celebrate. Who doesn’t? If I had enough scrilla to buy 30 grand’s worth of windex, I’d be in a partying mood, too. I just wish that he’d have chosen a better way of celebrating than popping a champagne cork. Shit like that, and I’m guessing that this is Ghostface because of the constant references to “ghost,” makes someone that’s supposed to be a super-genius just a cleverer version of a cliché. A genius would be celebrating by brooding in the self-hatred that accompanies knowing that you are somehow smarter than everyone else in the world, thereby making you a freak of nature whom nobody understands, and it doesn’t matter because you wouldn’t want to hang out with those idiots anyway. And is this guy a genius? I don’t fucking know because I never really listened to him, but I guess not because he’s just doing the same shit as everyone else. And the “I just want to celebrate” song pisses me off when I hear it. It reminds me of my dad doing a retarded rendition of the twist at a wedding. Maybe I’m just too dimwitted to pick up on the subtle nuances of his craft. Maybe I just don’t want to try because I know that, ultimately, when I get to the core of it, it’ll be just another rapper bragging about how rich he is and how he picked up his stinky turd, polished it with a magic rag, and turned it into a pile of gold.


Song 3: Fat Joe feat. Lil Wayne - The Crackhouse

Jay Pud: FUCK! I used capitals and an exclamation point because I can’t go into the computer and vomit all over you. If I did that, you’d get the gist of this song without having to waste the space downloading it. This makes me appreciated the song above a little bit more. Not to a point where I think it’s any good, but at least he tried to write some lyrics. This guy is actually talking about shitting on people. Not in a funny way, either. I seriously think that the guy who keeps saying welcome to the crack house, and who talks about shitting on people is an honest to goodness retard and the guy who apparently “runs the streets” is just the idiot who carts him around to Mcdonalds for a happy meal and then maybe to the park so he can swing on the swings. JOEY KEEPS DOING IT. GET HIM JOEY. MEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. JOEY WANTS A CHICKEN NUGGET. If anyone buys this album, I hate them. Sincerely. I can’t wait to find out who this is so I can begin to look in the cars coming through my gas station for this cd. Then I will shit on them, but in a funny way. Seriously, only a retarded would say they are sleeping on a billion dollars. JOEY WANTS TO SLEEP ON A GAZILLION DOLLARS MEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Shining White Revue #3

This is the column where 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: Nas - Surviving The Times

Jay Pud: The opening of this reminds me of sitting in a shitty diner drinking coffee after a long night of drinking. I think it’s because it reminds me of that stupid “Beautiful World” song that my wife tells me I’m supposed to love because it’s pretty and the world is supposedly a place where flowers grow without dirt. The flow (can I use the word flow? I feel like a cockstain) is pretty good, I guess, but he just rhymed invincible and miracle, which even I have heard a million times. This is good, but it’s boring. It’s not as good as “Back in the Day” by Kareem, or whoever the fuck sung that. That song told me about back in the day but wasn’t boring. Also, I can kind of imagine Puma with the fat laces over Gucci. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rapper not on TV wearing Gucci. That’s unfair, because I’ve never seen anyone wearing Gucci at all, and I’ve never seen a real rapper. Only the kinda gay kinds that try to give me a cd at my gas station job and have some guy named Je$u$ listed as their producer. People who do bad stuff (and I’m only assuming he’s talking about doing bad stuff because it’s hard to listen to his lyrics while I’m writing this) wear sweatpants and South Pole bubble jackets. Actually, upon another listening, I’m unsure as to whether he was wearing Gucci or some girl was. I think he got some Gucci and then Gucci power got him a record deal or something. And then he didn’t do bad stuff, but got famous or something. This song is giving me a headache. I’m done trying to figure it out.

Song 2: Pete Rock 'Til I Retire

Jay Pud: Haha. “I’m a gay and I return.” (This is what Jay thought Pete Rock was saying -- Mike) And he’s gonna bring the fire. His name is apparently Pete-Rock, and that sounds like someone who was a “famous rapper” in the 80’s, so I’m guessing that this dude is like 50, and so I’m giving him a crappy lyrics pass because he doesn’t know any better. Do you know why the government will never “be busted?” This may sound like a shitty ebonics joke, but I assure you it’s not, because while I can sort of write in English, I can’t really speak it. Anyways, the reason is, if your case is “I always hate to see a black man in jail,” I assure you that the fucking high up white powers won’t give much of a shit about what you have to say. I hate to see hot chicks not blowing me. That’s all I’m trying to say. If I could talk to lady justice I’d definitely bring that up with her. Why the fuck does every other song I listen to talk about how they are either A) going to bring hip hop back to life, B) worried about whether or not hip hop is dead, or C) insisting that hip hop is still alive. Just because Nas has a stupid album title isn’t necessarily a call for crappy rappers to get into the fight. Or maybe it is, but maybe they should just stop talking about it and do it. This song sucks. I’m trying not to hate…I really am. If this song is by your hero or favorite rapper, I am sorry for being a curmudgeon. Hopefully the next song will be good. This song is not, though.


Song 3: Cunninlynguists feat. Phonte & Witchdoctor - Yellow Lines

Jay Pud: Seriously? See, now I’m beginning to think that Mike is purposely trying to make me seem super white and all “I don’t understand.” This is black chick music. And trust me, you name a race, archetype, fucking stereotype, class, anything that you have, and I can peg their music because I work at a gas station and I know what people listen to in their cars. Or this is a black dude trying to get pussy song, and I know those when I hear them coming down the street because my ears perk up and I smell money. No man or woman alive is a better tipper than a black man trying to get pussy, at least around my block. Is that stereotyping? Probably, but not hatefully. White dudes who are into rap who are trying to get pussy always have the radio on, (Hot97, or maybe some hits station) because white chicks dig the radio. I think black chicks win out on that battle, because if I was a girl I’d much rather some dude try to lay it on me all smooth like with something like this then the Superman song. Either way, I can’t imagine that anyone not trying to sleep with a black chick would listen to this.

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.

Shining White Revue #1

Mike Dikk: I'm trying a little something new here for the sake of uniformity. Things that will (hopefully) become recurring columns/gimmicks will have a cute little banner (like the one seen above) that I make from scratch in my basement using wood shavings and spare pipe cleaners.

The first "column" is by my life long man friend, Jay Pud. Jay doesn't use the internet much, hence me posting this for him and doing the intro.

Here's the explanation of his column. Every week, I will give him three current singles without telling him what they are, and he will review them in real time while he listens to them. At the same time, I will provide you, the reader, with a chance to download said songs, but since you use the internet unlike Jay, you probably already have them. Since Jay does not use the internet and doesn't care to be a music dork, or even listen to all that much rap music in his free time, his opinions and views will be completely genuine and IN YO' FACE, which is something that we may be seeing on the internet for the first time since the 90's, and possibly the first time ever on a blog.

Don't worry, every week I will explain this concept over again until you get it.

This is where my part ends, the rest of the words are Jay's.

__________________________________________________________________________

Song 1: Aesop Rock - Non Shall Pass

Jay: This guy is white. He has to be. Because I can tell that he is white without knowing who it is, he loses a few points off the get-go. The beat is pretty good, though. I almost wish I had a looped version of this beat playing constantly through the tumultuous times of my life. I think he’s going all militant, too, and as much as I hate it when black rappers do that, I hate it even more when white rappers try to do it for them. I guess if I said that this was no good I’d be full of shit, though. The “I’m trying to help” sample just further proves my point about the aforementioned white rappers “trying to help.” They shouldn’t.

Song 2: Wu-Tang Clan - Watch Your Mouth (From the upcoming 8 Diagrams LP)

Jay: This is obviously Wu Tang, and I knew that before they told me that it was Wu Tang. I can sniff Wu Tang a mile away like a fat sweaty vagina at a hot dog stand. And like most white people, I like the Wu Tang. Unlike most white people, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m not that hardcore of a guy. So while I’d listen to this if it came on in someone else’s car, I’d never spend my own personal free time listening to it. I don’t see anything wrong with being a passive Wu Tang listener, because I just don’t give a fuck, because I’m not from the mean streets, I’m from the trying-to-be mean streets but really just drug addled white streets. On my streets, people love the Wu Tang because they make white people feel like they knifed somebody. I never knifed anybody. My brother did, and it was scary as fuck. So is it good? Yes. Do I care? No.

Song 3: Soulja Boy - Crank Dat

Jay: If I had to guess I’d say that this guy’s name is Souljah Boy. This sounds like any of the other Three-Six mafia type stuff that my untrained ears have been exposed to. I think he just said either “Soup’s Up,” or “Supersoak,” but either way I can imagine this as the type of garbage that white people listen to really loudly in their cars to prove their blackness. I’m actually surprised he didn’t say anything about primered Honda Civics, but then again he might have. I didn’t really know what he was saying other than “Superman, HOOOOOOOOO.”