Willy Staley
Most Recently: A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage
Willy Staley also writes for Next American City.
A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage
One of McDonald’s most divisive products, the McRib, made its return last week. For three decades, the sandwich has come in and out of existence, popping up in certain regional markets for short promotions, then retreating underground to its porky lair—only to be revived once again for reasons never made entirely clear. Each time it rolls out nationwide, people must again consider this strange and elusive product, whose unique form sets it deep in the Uncanny Valley—and exactly why its existence is so fleeting. READ MORE
What's Really Pornographic? The Point of Documenting Detroit
Early this year, John Patrick Leary, a professor of American literature at Wayne State University, published a story in Guernica called "Detroitism" about, primarily, the two competing journalistic and artistic narratives about the Motor City. READ MORE
Why We Shouldn't Treat Rap As Poetry
Jesse Kramer is a 24-year-old freelance writer, of sorts, but one whose talents are actually in demand. Right out of USC, with a major in Business, Kramer started a business called Rap Rebirth. It's a one-stop shop for all your rap needs. Jesse will help you punch up your rhymes, hooks, metaphors and similes; he’ll write you anything from a 16-bar verse to a whole album. He can even make you sound like Drake, if you want (odds are you will, apparently), and his business just might pose a problem to academics who want to make a name off of treating rap as something it is not. READ MORE
Four Loko Delivered Just What Its Marketing Department Promised
Back in July, in assessing the sudden prominence of awful beverage Four Loko in rap, we decided that "rap songs about consumer goods will never be the same again." But there were bigger things on the horizon for Four Loko. In New York, the Latin Kings forced their rape victim to chug 10 cans of Four Loko before torturing him. Out west, a bunch of Central Washington University students "over-dosed" on the drink. New Jersey's Ramapo College has banned it from their campus. To put it mildly, and to stress the least important part of these stories, Four Loko has had a rough month for PR. READ MORE
How the Looming Specter of Viral Marketing Ruins Rap Songs About Consumer Goods
There has been much commiseration lately over the perceived decline of hip-hop. It's bad because it's fully transitioned to pop, say some. It's bad because of The Internet, say others. To me, this seems to be a whole lot of misplaced nostalgia. Do these people really want to return to the early 90's-so they can hear Cypress Hill on the radio? Or maybe the late 90s, to catch a guest verse from Fiend or C-Murder on some No Limit clusterfuck of a record? The 90s were not some paradise for commercial rap where mainstream radio played UGK, Heltah Skeltah and Mac Dre all the time; most commercial rap sucked in the 90s, too. READ MORE
