This was the week that saw a song commemorating the most widely anticipated baby since Lucy and Ricky’s little one, but plenty of other childhood-related events also happened.
Childhood favorites of many 70s and 80s babies received their props this week, as Fred the Godson shouted out the Fat Boys and Southern staple Young Dro name-dropped Pee-wee Herman. on a more serious note, Cassidy pondered the ultimate philosophical quandry, and the rapper formerly known as Mos Def compared life in the hood to a slasher movie.
5. “What came first, the weed plant or the seed of weed?/Put a Magnum on when you smash a jawn or get Eazy-E” – Cassidy, ‘You So Phony’
We at RG have had great affection for Cassidy since the beginning of his career. while his albums have often been underwhelming, his freestyles and mixtape songs can be amazing. So it is with ‘You So Phony,’ and this excerpt in particular is notable for its sudden shift in tone, from a chicken-or-egg query — humorously changed to a far more relevant piece of nature — to a safe-sex PSA (former NWA member Eric “Eazy-E” Wright died of complications from AIDS in 1995), with no transition between the ideas. Somehow, the Hustler makes it work, mostly by the sheer conviction in his voice. the fact that it’s an ODB-style non sequitur barely registers and when it does, the line suddenly becomes even more amusing.
4. “I’m so Fat Boy fresh/With that rap, boy — they know that boy best” – Fred the Godson, ‘Set it Off’
Fred is getting to be somewhat of a line of the week regular, having taken the crown two weeks ago. but this nod to the hefty rapper’s progenitors in the big-man-rapping game brings us a smile and a sudden urge to re-watch Disorderlies.
3. “Up the coast is where I be, burn a tree in Germany/Thirty inch rider y’all, on them Pee-wee Herman feet” – Young Dro, ‘Boomin”
We’ve long been fans of Atlanta’s Young Dro, mostly for his ability to talk endlessly about the colors of his different cars. Writer Tom Breihan notably cataloged the hues in Dro’s garage over the course of one of his mixtapes — the list went “whirlwind, sour apple, Jolly Rancher, Patron, Tropicana, Mars bar, tofu, your lipstick, high-tide ocean, Papa Smurf, Patron again, bell pepper, the nose on Rudolf, Tropicana again, cocaine, Superman, vanilla, and Ric Flair hair.”
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