Sunday, April 4, 2010

A Boring Tray Weekend Story

I was going home from the gym to change into something to wear at our one bar when I was stopped by a familiar voice that asked, "is 23 your favorite number?" And I was like, what, why, and she was like, because your screenname is traydeuce on toplawschools. It only occurred to me, like, 20 minutes later that she should've been asking me whether my favorite number was 32. But anyway I explained that my name was Asher which became Ashtray which became Tray and one day when I was listening to Cam's 'Family Ties,' by no means one of my favorite Purple Haze songs but a song with its moments to be sure I heard Cam say something about a trey-deuce and I was like, THAT'S my new AOL screenname! (Plus some numbers I'm not giving out here.) And she said, I think I know that song, and I was like, ohmygodareyouaCamfan? And she said sort of, and then compared him to Drake... which was a relief because I don't really want to become infatuated with anyone in the weeks before I leave so any huge flaws in this quite charming girl, like liking Drake, were quite welcome news to me. After changing into my douchey preppy outfit and loafers, I walked over to the bar and on my way what do I hear but a nice Drake song. Dear readers, I was just appalled at what a bad rapper Drake was. Drake, not, like, really being a rapper, but rather more of some kind of robot who seems to have applied the lessons he learned in acting class about enunciation and clear diction to his recording career, says everything so clearly that if a car is speeding by you you can hear everything he says exactly and go home and google the lyrics and find the song. This is actually pretty rare if you think of all the times you've turned on the radio and heard some cool song by Gucci or OJ you wanted to download when you got home and you listen and listen hoping to hear some clear understandable phrase you can type in to Google, and it's just like, ssdfjsdwgesdgfBRICKSsdfwewettesyeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Which is cool, that sort of thing has grown on me. Now some rappers have clear diction, like Nas or Jay, but none sound like they're on a stage heeding the lesson of their high school theater teacher to say everything twice as slowly as they think they should so the granny in the back can hear. Drake however does, and this really underscores how much his lyrics suck. He also has this habit of EMPHASIZING every word at the end of every line, sometimes because these words are supposedly clever punchlines, but sometimes just because that's just what he does. So when the car passed by blaring these lines my jaw just dropped at the suckiness on display:

We just took our first trip to the AMALFI COAST,

couple days on the beach then it's ADIOS,
killer, just look what i DONE ALONE,
you would swear we planted trees the way the MONEY GROWN,
we been busy like some bees no HONEYCOMB,
and you could probably feel the breeze when the MONEY'S BLOW'N

We been busy like some bees no HONEYCOMB?? You can't be serious. On that note, see this hilarious list of top ten fake Drake lyrics. Favorites include "you only move grams - wheelchair," "I run this paper business - Michael Scott," "Just do it. Nike," and really best of all, "[corporate slogan] [corporate name]." Can't you really hear him doing the last one? Corporate SLOGAN, corporate NAME... jump around, you are in the house of PAIN....

2 comments:

JoJo said...

Back in college my friend and I actually discovered Paul Wall when we were sitting on his front porch in Richmond. Some wig-neck drove by bumping something pre-People's Champ and there were some distinct lyrics that we were able to google. We were better off for it.

Asher said...

I'm not sure that discovering Paul Wall makes you better or worse off. He does articulate himself clearly though.