Hip Hop Through the D.Addy Lens

As I get a bit older, I notice how much music has changed. Let me be honest. I am still fuming that music from my high school years is now classified as “Dusties.” I flip through YouTube clips of old hip hop artists and wonder, “Wow.” Even our one hit wonders, say, Black Sheep, had solid flow. True, there were trends. The Black Militant Trend. The Bohemian Trend. The Gangsta Trend. We had a lot of trends. I guess I like my generation’s rap music better because we had our trends simultaneously. Tribe, NWA, LL, Digital Underground, Redman, MC Lyte, Public Enemy…They were all artists of the same era. They were all popular around the same time. They all had talent. They looked and sounded nothing alike.

LL could get soft at times, but he saved his best flow for battles and cameos on other artists’ tracks. I think he has personally deaded more careers than any other artist. Argue what you will about NWA, but in my opinion, they were rap’s first super group. A prodigal producer in Dre, prolific writer in Cube, unmatchable lyricist in MC Ren, and Eazy E served as the perfect comic foil. Shock G’s rhyme scheme would have made Shakespeare proud (first album only…I won’t claim anything after EP Release). Redman…well, only Doc could make a case for needing weed rehab sound like so much fun. I waited for LL to dis Lyte. THAT woulda been a battle. Never happened. Probably a good thing, because someone would have had to die. Rap then was full of personalities and ideas which were expressed in both funny language and foul. Most importantly, the personalities and antics of the artists were seldom overshadowed by their art. OK. Maybe NWA. Sometimes.

Today? It is T-This and T-that and Birdboy and BongoFlow. I don’t think some of these guys can even read. They mumble or drawl, creating a rap/song hybrid that needs to be put to sleep. I work with kids, and what appears to be selling these guys’ music is the same image: pants below your drawers, phat luxury vehicle, and average looking but spectacularly bodded up young women that drape themselves across said luxury rides while the guys drink liquid from goblets resembling something from the Round Table era. The girls never touch the guys. Never.

In my day, my chances to break out as a rapper would have been laughably slim. Thanks to time and a deterioration of both talent and expectations, I believe that it is now time to market my rap alter ego in an attempt to get myself that Porsche before turning 40. Sorry, son. You got a trust fund. This is all about me.

My rap name is D.Addy. Pronounced Dee Addee. I want to capitalize on a current trend, and this is a way to do it. I have already sat for album cover photos. I am posing, pants pulled up unfashionably to my waist, hooded sweatshirt and dark glasses masking my features. The fold-up, aviator style glasses with “Porsche” etched in white out on the top of the left lens. I am standing in front of my gleaming, fully loaded black Town & Country. Its hubcaps are gleaming. Across my shoulder is a bag that holds my cel phone, circa 1988. In the background is a billboard touting the return of BBD. Actually, they will do my background lyrics, as I want to bring dancers back to Hip Hop.

The women on my back cover will be leaning on the side of my T&C, dressed in the best mommy gear we can find on sale somewhere. Whatever attributes they have will be unmistakable, as childbirth does that, I have heard. They will both look annoyed. One will actually have her eyes caught in mid roll. In the background will be the marquee for Red Lobster or some other chain restaurant that puts coupons in Sunday newspaper circulars.

My list of tracks (so far) is as follows:

1. A Dolla is Allowance Enough
2. Naw You Can’t Drive
3. Ask Your Mother (duet with my label mate MamaCanI)
4. $2.50 a Gallon?
5. I Don’t Care What Everyone Else is Doing (Get You’re a** On Home)
6. Tell Yo Friends Stop Callin’ My House
7. If Everybody Jumped Would You Go Too?
8. That Kelly Boy Like Little Girls
9. Whatever I Give You
10. Walk Like You Got Some D**n Sense
11. Don’t Bring Me No Babies
12. Starburys Are Just As Good
13. You Got No Money (And Neither Do I)
14. No More Socks Come Father’s Day (explicit-bonus track)