Bleh

Beef or chicken?

I'm really fed up with rap these days. So fed up that instead of attempting to write about good rap, I might turn this into a bad rap blog, the place where you go to get the latest U-God and Common and Plies. Not really, but in that spirit, there's a video I think you should see. You may remember the Teriyaki Boyz. In 2006, the Japanese dude who owns Bathing Ape, pictured above (he's the one who looks like a shrewd businessman even in spite of his ridiculous hoodie) and four talentless Japanese rappers formed a group. Off the strength of their footwear connections, they got the sickest production lineup on their album since Large Pro, Premo and Pete Rock inexplicably lent their talents to Non-Phixion. The Neptunes, Daft Punk, Premo, Just Blaze, Dan the Automator, DJ Shadow, and perhaps most memorably, Michael Watts all put in work for what might best be described as a Japanese version of The Bravehearts - if Nas were replaced by Marc Ecko. That said, at least with a lineup like that you knew their hearts were in the right place. Seems for this album though that they're moving on to a more pop sound in insane hopes of going platinum and clocking mad green. (Apparently this album is actually being released on Star Trak - in America.) In fact, they're already on their second crappy Pharrell-featuring single. The latest one, though, 'Work It' featuring Pharrell and Chris Brown, stoops to new lows. The video features the four flattest-assed video girls I've ever seen, and they're not even on the set, presumably for fear of contact with the Japanese rappers. So Pharrell and these wildly dorky Japanese folks in ties and blazers are standing in front of a giant green screen of these pancake-assed, American Appareled out girls, imploring them to "work that, work that, work that, work that," leading the proceedings to take on quite a masturbatory/flagrino air. CB, wisely, skipped the shoot; I'm not sure he's established enough to sustain the damage a thing like this could do to his career.


TERIYAKI BOYZ WORK THAT feat. PHARRELL & CHRIS BROWN from Marsou on Vimeo.