Ooh, ahh, I lost my bra
MySpace bitch Lily Allen recently had YouTube ‘phenomenon’ Tay ‘Chocolate Rain’ Zonday on her horrific TV show, singing a robot-baritone version of ‘Smile’, which she introduced as “the most beautifully written and quite possibly the deepest and most heartfelt song of the 21st Century”. There was something unnerving about the set-up that left me no with doubt the world was about to end - Allen lip-syncing along to the circus freak’s performance, Cuba Gooding Jr. looking befuddled on the couch next to her (I think he was on drugs, lots of drugs), Zonday looking as though androids do walk the earth.
In the middle of this brain haemorrhage, my roommate’s friends remarked it was “cool how Lils brought her own style of rap” to pop music. A tiny part of me died, never to be resurrected, and I banned my roommate’s friends from the crib. Who the fuck thinks Lily Allen’s a rapper? I inwardly cringed recollecting her grating contribution to Dizzee’s last album (what’s worse than a spoon-fed white girl, busily riding on daddy’s coat-tails, singing about being a gangsta?) and shuddered at her appearance in Common’s last video. But, as if Lily’s not enough to keep me shivering awake at night, YouTube and MySpace have spawned a sickening breed of similar parasites. There’s a barrage of upper-class white girls that think they can ‘rap’ crawling out of London’s poshest woodworks, flying around on their right vulture-wings and thinking they have something political to say because they’ve memorised the lyrics to M.I.A.’s latest single. And it seems there’s a whole world full of white girls buying their records, as magazine articles and festival stages substantiate the terrifying trend.
Lily Allen, Uffie, Goldilocks, Miss Odd Kidd… Janet Jackson would manage a grimace on her impossibly botoxed face if she caught sight of this Rhythmless Nation. No rhythm, no style, no charisma, no finesse, just plenty of novelty value. These girls holding mics look as unnatural as an anorexic Rick Ross - heartbreaking to watch and it leaves you infuriated about the unfairness of the world. I sometimes think grime might actually get its shit together… and then I discover Goldilocks collabs and cry a hefty tear for the scene, lighter up. The so-so-street Miss Odd Kidd (from Portsmouth) kills my shit most. “Ooh, ahh, I lost my bra, I found your knickers in my boyfriend’s car.” Real lyrics and this girl is getting booked for real. Please, someone holla at David Icke - the end is nigh, fam.
Fleet Foxes
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