Sometimes I feel a little bit self-conscious, like I've thrown myself too fully into this rap thing. But it seems like by the nature of the rap game, it's by default the most interesting thing on the market. Oh, it's just talking fast to music, or oh, it's so violent and misogynistic.

The thing about hip hop is that it's the only genre that is so persistently bizarre, where there's a culture surrounding it in which fucking weird things happen all the time. I mean, beyond the previously mentioned Snoop Dogg moving to Australia, 50 Cent getting caught in an embarrassing display of lipsyncing, anything R. Kelly does (it sort of counts), the T.I. show at MSG, MIMS in general, and the absurd Graduation vs Curtis showdown, not to mention Lupe Fiasco, Paul Wall, and Twista's inexplicable appearance in this:



Then there's Chamillionaire's sampling of The Final Countdown on Ultimate Victory and how his song "Hip Hop Police" is the first song about Crime to appear on Radio Disney (he says "Heck Yeah" instead of "Hell Yeah," if you believe Wikipedia and I do believe wikipedia).

Then there's this classic from 1983:



Actually, this might continue with the Chamillionaire theme for a while, as he's starting to get funnier and funnier:



And then there's Kanye's Old-Ass Cousin



To love the genre, to love the culture, is to embrace the ridiculousness of it all. Maybe it is just because it is still in its adolescence as a genre, artistically. Rappers, paradoxically, seem to take themselves a lot less seriously this decade. Maybe it's reactionary to the Suge Knight era, but I think it's a turning point for the genre. It's not joke rap, but it's to the point where rappers can goof off, and I find no end to the enjoyment.

Labels: chamillionaire, kanye west, Lupe Fiasco, rap, run dmc