Rant #2: "I don't know what kinda girls he rolls with, but if I offered a girl a tip like some dime-piece, I'd probably get slapped"

This post is all about The Dream and R. Kelly:All these thoughts started rushing into my head after I saw this video. Granted, I've been thinking about them for a long time and finally got around to saying something about it...

As far as that video clip goes, I'm not really impressed by his production skills. I'm quite certain that I've made a melody that sounds 90% the same as the first joint he made when I was messin around with my AKAI. But then again, I'm not the one that's made a living off of making music...so you be the judge.

Anyways, on to the R. Kelly part:

The way I see it, The Dream is like a modern-day R. Kelly, minus the pee pee fetish. There's a few things about him that just get to me:

First of all, I dunno what it is, but every time I hear a fat guy sing in a falsetto voice, something just doesn't seem right. It's like calling a phone sex line and hearing a woman with a sensual voice, only to find out that she's like 300lbs and lives in a trailer park. Guys like The Dream always remind of the episode of The Simpsons where Homer meets the chubby guy in the mental institute who thinks he's Michael Jackson...it's just...weird.... Of course, he later goes on to sing "Happy Birthday" to Lisa later on and is voiced by none other than MJ himself.


Now, we all know R. Kelly is notorious for putting extremely sexual/borderline inappropriate lyrics into his songs. Who can forget his song Sex In The Kitchen, where he literally screams out "Girl I'm ready to toss your salad!" (fast forward to about 1:00 in).

Oh hellllll noooooo....He ain't singing about no romaine lettuce. (For those of you that don't know what that means...go here). But, Kels sings it in his smooth R&B voice, and the song is a laid-back slow jam, so it's all good right? Wrong. Singing the words doesn't make the lyrics any better! And that's exactly why this verse from The Dream's Shawty is a 10 is just plain bad:

She Fine, Shawty Is A Dime
You Should Tip Her, You Should Tip Her
If She Good, And You Love Her
You Should Tip Her, You Should Tip Her
If She Fix You Eggs And Grits In The Morning
You Should Tip Her, You Should Tip Her
Pancakes With The Bacon On The Side
(You Should Tip Me, You Should Tip Me)

TIP her? I don't know what kinda girls he rolls with, but if I offered a girl a tip like some dime-piece, I'd probably get slapped. Show me a girl that would actually say that last line, and I'll show you a stripper. Granted, these words aren't nearly as vivid or nasty as Kels' verses, but it's the same idea. Singing in a falsetto voice don't make the words right.

Am I the only person that's noticed this shit is going on? Then again, these aren't the first instances where grimy-ass lyrics have been snuck into heavy rotation on the radio and club scene. Take for example, one of the biggest songs by Lil Jon ever...Get Low (refer to "skeet"). I especially like how the clean version of the song replaced "motherfucker" with 4 extra "skeets". That's even worse! I can't tell you how many girls I saw screaming out those words in the club. If you actually knew what that meant, you'd think twice about saying that, girl.

At the end of the day, I don't really care about profanity in songs anymore. I'm really immune to all of it these days and it'd take some really weird shit to get my attention (refer to "toss your salad") and with the state of hip hop right now, half the time I only listen to the production on the tracks...go figure. But if you're gonna talk or sing about some nasty shit, or shit that just doesn't make any sense, don't try to cover it up by putting it in an R&B song. That ain't what R&B's for, so leave that dirty talk to the Ying Yang Twins.