Amidst the TROY fiasco (badum-tss), a somewhat encouraging point got lost in the shuffle; Lupe started to make sense again. And even though the joint might’ve packed in so much talking points few of them actually got the attention they might’ve deserved, this sounded more like the Lupe we admired than anything during the monstrosity of the Lasers era. This track however, focuses on a single set of interconnected issues, namely the oversexualized image of women in mainstream media, hip-hop’s complicity in enforcing it and most importantly, it’s effect on young girls:
Now let’s say that they less concerned with him
And more with the video girl acquiescent to his whims
Ah, the plot thickens
High heels, long hair, fat booty, slim
Reality check, I’m not trippin’
They don’t see a paid actress, just what makes a bad bitch
Lupe is lyrically on point again, smartly argues his point and, like he did back on ‘Dumb It Down,’ utilizes a hook that sonically fits in with the type of songs he’s criticizing while turning their messages on it’s head. That’s the good news.
The bad news however, is that Lupe sounds oddly detached, you could even say bored through the whole thing. The conversational tone in his flow might’ve worked on a jazzier beat but set to this generic synthesizer track, turns the song into a background snoozer. It isn’t until the third verse that a smidgen of rapid-fire “super-lyrical Lupe” rap enters the fray, but by then it’s far too little too late. The singing in the outro adds nothing and even though it makes sense in the light of the songs he’s criticzing, nobody wants to hear autotune anymore.
Lupe gets an A for effort, but like Jasri X recently said in our interview with him, emcees are not entitled to support just because they’ve got a message. The song needs to knock as well, or nobody is going to pay your (valid) point the necessary attention.
