Viva the straight rap movement

Natural born pessimist that I am, I figured that hipster rap might be the final nail in the coffin. Hip-Hop had already been on a creative downswing for more than 10 years now. Certainly, the fact that mofos are walking around wearing purses and tight-ass pants showing off their nuts was a sign that hip-hop had crossed some sort of threshold into complete and utter teh gheyness.

It had gotten to the point where, when I'm talking to someone who's never heard of XXL, which is the case more often than you'd think, even amongst people who listen to rap music, I just tell them it's a magazine about fat men's clothes. Which would make sense anyway, since I wear fat men's clothes, and presumably I might have some sort of expertise in the field.

Lately though, there's been some signs that hip-hop might actually be about to reclaim its manliness.

First of all, there's was the backlash against hipster rap in the hip-hop blogosphere, which I think was brought on by a few different things, including Arab rapper Mazzi's jihad (pardon my use of the term) against hipster rappers like Jay Electronica and the Cool Kids, Unkut.com's poll to determine the biggest douchebag in hipster rap, and the fact that the Cool Kids put an album out and it only sold like 4,000 copies, despite the fact that they've been mentioned on the Internets more times than 2 girls 1 cup.

Now, I see there's been a movement developing in the streets against onstensibly straight hip-hop kids walking around dressed as if they were fruits.

The other day, there was a story in the Village Voice about some guys out in New York called Thug Slaughter Force who've got a song out called "No Tight Clothes." There's also a music video on YouTube, and a t-shirt that says "Tight Clothes" with a red slash through it.

Here's a few sample lyrics from "No Tight Clothes," as printed in the Village Voice:

Take them tight-ass fuckin' clothes off

That shit ain't gangsta, nigga

We don't wear tight clothes . . . we let it hang!

. . . Shirt extra-small and you six feet tall

Lookin' like you got your pants off a Ken doll

Of course, with it being the gay-ass Village Voice, these guys are painted as virulent homophobes and failed no-talents trying to capitalize off a gimmick. I can buy the argument TSF put forth in the article, that they aren't homophobes so much as they are committed fans of hip-hop, concerned with creeping teh gheyness in what was once a bastion of manliness in the black community.

But it's kinda hard to argue against that second point. According to the story in the Voice, these guys have been kicking around the hip-hop scene for 10 years now, and it's not hard to see why, as awful as "No Tight Clothes" is. It sounds like it could be a D4L record. Which would seem counterintuitive, given that these guys are from New York.

Or does the song suck balls on purpose, as a sort of commentary on the quality of rap music production these days? Like a modern day version of that song on the second Jeru the Damaja album where he's rapping about his bling bling.  Probably not, right?

Far superior, both in terms of the song itself and its attendant YouTube video, is "Operation Purse Snatcher" by a guy named Japcity.

I first became aware of this kid the other day, when he put out another YouTube video, called "Put that N-bomb under the Jail," about R. Kelly. Even though I couldn't necessarily agree with the sentiment, I was taken aback by the the sheer force of the argument as put forth in both the song and the video. Japcity fucking ethered R. Kelly.

And come to find out, R. Kelly isn't the only one Japcity fucking ethered. Yesterday, I did some subsequent digging into this kid's YouTube account (nhjic), and I turned up his video for "Operation Purse Snatcher," in which he absolutely destroys Lil Wayne, and mad other people in hip-hop who've been engaging in various forms of fruitiness.

It's absolutely brutal. I'd describe it, but it's probably best you just watch it.

I'm surprised I'm just now finding out about it, given the amount of time I spend discussing hip-hop on the Internets, and given how absolutely fucking huge Lil' Wayne has gotten in these past few weeks. Could it be that there's some conspiracy amongst mainstream media outlets to purposely obscure material that's critical of hip-hop's golden boys? I certainly hope not. Lord knows this is the kind of thing hip-hop could use right about now.