#crunk&b

Run It! (ft. Juelz Santana) - Chris Brown

“Run It!” is the debut single by Chris Brown, featuring Juelz Santana from his first, self-titled album. This came out at a time when music videos were still played on the television. It’s such a fun music video! The teens are in a gym after hours having a party. Brown and a lady he starts to crush on as the night goes on, participate in a dance battle with their crew. This music video definitely highlighted his dancing skill. I think Santana fits in well in the song and the beat, produced by Scott Storch is fire! It’s funny, I never heard his name mentioned in the beginning of the song until recently. I can’t believe how long Brown has been in the music game. He turns 31 today and in that music video, he was only 16, wow!

Song: 8/10

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I just want everyone to know “Yeah!” by Usher...

i just listened to this for like the first time since a middle school dance and like…. what did lil jon contribute he just said yeah a few times

Oh my dear boy. A very heavy cultural meme circa 2005-2007, made very popular by Chapelle skits featuring him as Lil Jon and all he does is say “Yea” “Okay” and “What?” in response to people. They are some of my fave skits ever. 

But in more seriousness Lil Jon produced/co-wrote the song and was a very significant producer and songwriter circa 2005 and helped the genre crunk&b (a merge of crunk and r&b) become popular. 

But yea vocally he wasn’t doing much in the song, therefore jokes! 

Alright, so short post today, but I want to try and do at least one a day. This is the song “Special Education” by the Goodie Mob ft. Janelle Monae (and kind of Cee Lo Green -- he was originally a part of the group but left, came back for this album). 

This is a really fantastic song. I especially love Janelle Monae, she’s an unbelievably talented singer, and her voice is a welcome addition to the rap verses of the Goodie Mob. Speaking of which, this is a (now) rare opportunity to hear Cee Lo rap a bit, and his verse is absolutely fire. Here’s a quote from the end of his verse:

Let me put something poetic into plain English I'd rather die than to not be distinguished The outsiders have no desires to be equal When V.I.P. stands for "Very Insecure People"

The whole point of the song is to talk about how our school system, our culture, our society at large rejects those who don’t fit within the normative mold of what is “good” or “important”. Cee lo, for instance, was born with a heart of gold and a tongue of silver, Khujo warns against the “attack of the clones”, and Janelle asks us “Don’t you want to feel special?”. The whole song prods at this whole social construct of “normal” and what that means. 

(Personal opinion time) It’s interesting hearing this perspective as a psych major because this is exactly what the field is meant to study: are we special or is something wrong? I’m personally inclined to agree with the rappers for the most part here. There’s a lot of personality traits and quirks that I think are wrongly assessed as evidence of mental/personality/cognitive issues. What we perceive as problems (different learning styles, different perspectives, different intelligences) could, and I think are, most often just differences, uniqueness. 

Ciara featuring Petey Pablo - Goodies ft. Petey Pablo (by CiaraVEVO)