50 Cent Wants In On Cee-Lo's Action, Will Take His Gold Digger
"Ironically, this week the Pajamas Media site ran a piece reporting that Egyptian Islamic scholar and self-proclaimed jihadist Abd al-Muti Bayum has condemned the 'Ground Zero mosque' as a devious 'Zionist conspiracy' to discredit Islam by linking it to the September 11 attacks. This was cited as an argument against the Cordoba Center. This is strange logic: the center shouldn't be built because radical Islamists will like it…. or because they will hate it." That's Reason's Cathy Young, whose colleague Radley Balko gave us such a good angle on the "NYC Terror Mosque" controversy last week.
This thing has had me very upset lately. I'm worried that they're going to preemptively "move" this thing that does not and might not ever exist, and that that's going to send the same kind of message to the world as George Bush's re-election in 2004. Basically, this. Which is not the message I think we should be sending.
And I'm all wringing my hands and spitting when I talk about it and mad at Obama for soft-pedaling and feeling like sending that same message back to the people who oppose the mosque.
But then I read this interview with Muslim rapper Lupe Fiasco wherein he comes across as far more accepting of the other side's viewpoint that anything I can muster, and it makes me feel stupid. But I still really hope they build it where it's planned.
Also, 50 Cent has already recorded a rap over the super new Cee-Lo song everybody loves so much. It's a response, from the rich-guy jerk's perspective, calling out Cee-Lo for crying sour-grapes. And there's a new video for it, too, adding the verse to the original's excellent typography treatment. It's kinda great.
Andy Hutchins correctly referred to 50's verse as "SEO rap." I'm just surprised he didn't try and shoehorn a Vitamin Water reference into his typical horrible "I have more money than you so na na" posturing.
Yeah. 50's rap itself is certainly not kinda great. (That last line is already looking funny to me there.) He pretty much stopped even trying with his rap years ago. What I like about him engaging the song like this, and so quickly, is the playfulness. He has this well-established persona-the rich alpha pig-and here comes someone saying "fuck you" to that kind of persona. So he turns around quickly and responds. And of course what he's really saying is that he likes the song. And yes, is maybe trying to SEO some attention off it. But probably not that much. I don't even know that he cares that much about the music part of his career at this point. Seems more like it was just for fun to me.
"SEO rap" is the most devastating but hilarious burn I've seen in a while, ouch.
This song, in either version, is just not that great. It sounds like every other Gnarls Barkley song and the typography is very 'pickup truck commercial'.
AIN'T THAT SOME SHIP
Nope, it's great.
Well he is also not the most attractive man either. So there is that. Yes I am shallow, but in a superficial way. As for the whole mosque thing. It's like Woody Allen banging the adopted daughter. Really this is ONLY place you could find?
Lupe Fiasco's comments are good, but I dunno, I'm kinda sick of the whole "Let's tread lightly so as not to offend all the people who aren't capable of understanding the fundamentally American philosophical principles that are at stake here" thing. It's like, haven't we already appeased them enough by, you know, bombing and torturing all those people?
I'm very much with you. I don't know, I was surprised, I guess-and impressed by the gentleness of his take. He sees it as a "win-win!" Wow. And I think it's usually better not to say "fuck you" to someone, even when you feel like saying "fuck you." Of course, there's a time and a place…
Sometimes it's better to say "forget you."
Yep and yep. The "win-win" thing is beautiful.
He is definitely handling this a lot better than his friend Lalo Brouhaha.
Ha! Well put, Mathnet.
I'm still holding out for the Will Oldham rendition.
iron & wine. and a million girls on youtube with ukeleles.
NOOOOOOOO
I am so getting a uke now.
Can I please express my nerd rage at the bastardization of the original's dynamic typography? I mean… Arial? "U"? Censoring "fuck" and "shit"?!? Not to mention being completely disconnected from the pace and tone of the vocals. It looks like it was thrown together in Final Cut with no respect for the original. :(
Yeah, I can't decide which is more amateurish, the video editing or the rapping.
Agreed, Polhemus. My boyfriend and I (graphic designer for very large co. and a typesetter, respectively) thought the exact same thing. Now the Awl's review has me thinking that "kinda great" must have the same meaning as "bitter biter."
Look, Dave, if you want to take the 60%+ of Americans who have a problem with the location of the mosque, ignore the differing reasons they give for their objections, and simply cast them as a throbbing horde of bigots then, well, whatever. However, after doing that you cannot reasonably fret about the message we send to the world. After all, it is you telling the world, on no other basis than a willingness to believe ill of those who disagree with you, that the majority of Americans are hateful morons.