"Love in This Club, Part II," Usher featuring Beyoncé and Lil' Wayne___"Love in This Club" was a Dr. Phil-styles changing pop song in my life. Strangely (blame New York City?), I didn't hear it's second half/remix until this winter. A boy-girl duet with a brief Weezy passage, the play is Continental, with its imaging of celebrity-en-clurrrb and a kinda Puerto Rican or Indian melodic narrative. But the players are Omni-American, the host, Usher, and author, Keri Hilson, totes (definitively) Atlantan, the two guests, Be and Wayne, deepSoutherners familiar with (working royalty in) that (A)town, its studios, lounges, fake lakes and SOUND(z) --(note that Usher scrapped the original version with Mariah Carey, who seems rather outside of Atlanta, as a star [however continually relevant] pre-dating Southern cultural dominance, for a Be version). So, beyond the story and fun, is Atlanta....I think "Love in This Club, Part II" is about Atlanta, Atlanta as Hollywood. Atlanta the business district, where, as is ever the case with artists (and the hobnobbing rich), personal life and professional life are unbordered, or just vaguely so. Here are some of Be and Usher's negotiations:
Usheerrrr
Yea thats It right here.
Queen Be Yeaaaah
I'm the king, y'all know that (Usher Baby!!) .
She the queen, came right back (Listen To It!!).
Yeaaahhh... Yeaaahhh
(OH!! REEEMIIIIX!!!)
[Verse 1: Usher]
Now baby girl there ain't nothing more than I can say.
Y' know by now I want it more than anything.
If I walk away and just let you leave,
You'll be stuck in my head like a melody.
[Beyoncé (Usher adlibs)]
I know you want it. (Yeah)
I'm hestitating. (Why?)
You must be crazy.
I got a man; you got a lady.
[Usher]
I know...we here together.
So this must be something special.
You could be anywhere you wanted,
but you decided to be here with me.
No coincidence, It was meant to be.
Don't be shy,
Let your boy get in.
So you can tell all of your friends
You was on the remix like...
****
[Verse 2: Beyoncé (Usher and Wayne adlib)]
Baby you know I'd be down,
But we can't have all these people starin' standin' around.
This right here is only for your eyes to see,
But you gettin carried away
Sayin we can (do it wherever).
The way you touching me
Like no other (I'ma make you feel insane),
You trying your hardest to make me give in,
But I'ma be down to give you what you want,
And if you keep it up,
I strongly doubt this velvet rope will hold me up,
And I don't want security rollin' up on us (I got you).
I'm not hesitating I just don't wanna rush.
You could be anywhere you wanted
But you decided to be here with me;
No coincidence, It was meant to be.
Promise if I mess around I let you get in.
You gon' tell all of your friends
You was on this remix like...
Negotiation, as a trick, a format, reads MARKET but it's the self-conscious lines, "So you can tell all of your friends you were on the remix" and "Promise if I mess around I let you get in/You gon' tell all your friends you was on this remix," sung by Usher and Be respectively, that wink smart, liken sex in public (VIP "public") to work in studio, making a remix, two bodies to the product, the audible commodity. And they're not just talking about the romance of artistic collaboration; both singers expect the other to brag about their breaks, their appearances on the track. The song is made a conversation between careerists in a gossipy Industry town, thick with casting couches, secrets, lies, watching eyes, hunger...
"4 My Town (Play Ball)," Birdman (heavily) featuring Drake and Lil' Wayne (Young Money+Cash Money, father+son!)___I've written here before about my unconditional, tween-borned love for Birdman and Wayne (the Cash Money lifestyle brand), and my attempts-at-love for "their kid," (nice cardigan) JimmyDrake, who was on Degrassi and half Memphian and debuted all plum with hot beats at back, though spitting some nuts mixture of yess ("I've always treated my city like some shoulder pads") and awful ("I love ya sushi roll/hotter than wasabi/I'm race'n for your love/shake and bake Ricky Bobby"), and I was torn, and it was hard to be supportive...but there was also this bit of civilian copy, where he came off like sugar with a Jewish mom and then I had a crush, so...
Here, Drake's verse is good (on reals), but it's in the languid chorus, a signature, as with "Successful" and "Money to Blow," where he's maybe trying to do a Nate Dogg thing that is soo superior to any other thing he does. Usually, in verses, he sounds amateurish.
I think most pop songs are written to me, for me (the point, no?). And in this vein, I've long been preoccupied by instances of rappers addressing schoolgirls. They're rare and often imagined (I'm sure), like schoolgirls are just a (my) figment of a whole population, young, well-heeled consumers, acknowledged by anybody trying to get known and paid. But iffin' I haven't projected the discourse, "4 My Town (Play Ball)" contains a loud instance. The chorus (which I'll paste in full):
Take yourself a picture when I'm standing at the mound,
And I swear it's going down, I'm just reppin' for my town,
Off a cup of C.J. Gibson, man I'm faded off the pound,
And I'm easily influenced by the niggas I'm around,
See that Aston Martin when I start it hear the sound,
I ain't never graduated I ain't got no cap and gown,
But the girls in my class who were smart enough to pass,
Be at all my fucking parties, grabbing money off the ground.
It's probably some lame ish about how girls with diplomas become strippers because there's scarce bill-paying hustle in a French or Sculpture degree or whatever. But I wonder. Back when (and I'm repeating myself), I was at Bungalow 8 for the first and only time. There were a couple of bankers making it rain on a woman some ten years my senior, who was un-poled and fully clothed and just dancing to the shite mix like me and everyone else. I was (obv) appalled, and, after an hour of glancing at the bills, damp and stuck to the rug, I grabbed them up and ran out to see my boyfriend and listen to whole, unadulterated songs. So, when I first heard Drake's chorus, I imagined some 20-yr-old cash-poor but clever Canadian stoner who went to prep school with him and showed up when he was in Toronto to say hey and maybe peep Wayne and have some bub and sweep the floor for small paper. I bet this isn't what he means....but maybe, hopefully, because smart girls having to work the shake junt is a yawn, he's referring to those bankers and lady, that Travis Porter song I posted last week, the habit of throwing bills at any kind of non-professional girl dancing, which glosses the problem of smart girls bending for the gaze, serving, regardless of the payoff, the widening disconnect between mind and body, sex and self, the way an education can be swallowed, disguised...I'm not sure Drake is spitting social consciousness, but maybe social-criticality...?
No comments:
Post a Comment