Even Fake Rap About Gossip Girl Must Be Stopped
As yesterday's Super Broker Shuffle proved, the fake rap situation is not quite as cut-and-dry as, for example, the gay marriage question. This has a lot to do with fake rap being stupid and unimportant, whether you like it or not, as opposed to a cultural hot-button equal rights issue with deep moral implications for the futures of both the oppressed and the oppressors (in different ways). That's, like, probably the main reason they're not equally obvious. So, fine, we have proven that every once in awhile there will be a fake rap that manages to avoid an outraged call for the entire genre's elimination. The Super Broker Shuffle is acceptable because it's basically a parody of a parody of a rap, so the generation loss ends up buffering it against criticism.
Another example that I'm asked about regularly is the work of Lonely Island, which I find to be another rare pass in the 99-percent-fail-rate test of acceptability, the reason being that the music is actually pretty good. Iran So Far, for example, almost sounds like an actual song that I might listen to, and the lyrics are smartly funny, rather than, say, instructional, or not-half-as-funny-as-they-think-they-are-funny. Having access to professional singers, and also the guy from Maroon 5, doesn't hurt. In any case, you can see how it really does boil down to a case-by-case basis, where most cases get sent directly to jail.
Case in point is today's fake rap (via Intelligencer) from a couple of white guys who call themselves Southern Mothers featuring Matt Pearson who is not white about Gossip Girl titled "Dear Gossip Girl":
The video is well shot, the lyrics are well written, and there's even a black guy involved, which is rare for a fake rap (and also far too common, paradox!), and yet somehow this only further proves that we need to FIGHT HARDER. Perhaps it's the low budget "My Computer Came with Garage Band Pre-Installed" quality of the beat, or the fact that even as someone who enjoys Gossip Girl and spends far too much of his time every week thinking and talking about it, even I don't want this.
Posted by Gabe at 5:15 PM in Backlashes, Everyone's A Critic
Tags: Fake Rap | Gossip Girl
Does nerdcore count as fake rap? Because if it does, I am throwing my full weight behind a countermovement to your call to end fake rap. However, I will concede the point that all the fake rap you've discussed in past posts is terrible.
Score = 0
I'm the one that sent this Chris over at NYMAG, do I get a special award for spreading this like a VD?
Score = 1
It's so good though haha
They even reference rufus' hit song 'Everytime' That is dedication to pain.
Score = 3
I'm as tired of the fake-rap-by-white-folks genre as anyone, but you're gravely mistaken about this one. It is solid gold. Look how many GG references they packed into just five minutes! They even throw in some Dante and Shakespeare! The lyrics aren't just "well-written," they're goddamn clever. Really, they don't deserve your (usually well-directed) hate.
Score = 4
ok. "I'll bet you three dorotas" got me.
Score = 3
click on "watch in high quality" below the right side of the video. it makes the video and audio quality significantly better. for the record, i also feel that white people doing fake rap is almost always terribly dumb. that said, I think the writing and references are genius, the beat is thick and hot (listen on some REAL speakers cranked up or headphones), and that breakdown is straight up Maxwell circa 2000. well done.
Score = 2
These guys seem really smart, and the music is damn good too. I think you're being way too harsh.
Score = 0
I don't watch the show, so I can only hypothesize on, for example, why it might be a good thing to be a "common American poof." That said, I have to come down on the side of all you apologists being way out of line...you are fans of Gossip Girl, so you are going to be charmed by this kind of thing regardless of its true quality, but objectively it does not accomplish anything that Weird Al hadn't done a decade ago.
Score = -2