If only a nigga knew how to italicize the titles.

loading...

If Plies is the future of Hip-Hop, we may as well fix H.E.R. a delicious bowl of Cyanide Mini-Wheats. I'm pretty sure that Ya Woy Ply has an SDN disorder of the terminal variety.

Define: "Deceleration." Someone at Vibe signed off on going from a Barack Obama cover to... well...

Waiter: And what will you have to drink with your caviaaar, sir?

Diner: Oh, yeah. Ummm... Lemme get the grape Kool-Aid.

W: Absolutely, sir. Fantastic choice. It comes from a good year.

D: And could you bust open a Newport over top of that... let the guts sink to the bottom for me?

W: Oh, sorry. We're all out of Newport. Will a KOOL suffice, sir?

D: Aight. I fucks with that. And bring us some more of these crab cakes. I fucks with these crab cakes!

You don't wash down fine cuisine with mentholated grape Kool-Aid, people.

Last summer's Definition of Literacy encounter with Plies should have given Vibe enough incentive to select a different figurehead for our voice... maybe Kanye or something.

Vibe: Plies is an interesting name for a rapper, how did you get that nickname?

Plies: "Plies" is a tool. You can use it to put the squeeze on things, like I’m doing to these niggas in the rap game. I got the squeeze on them real tight. They feeling the pressure. Or you can use it to pull things out. I pull out all the bullshit and keep the real, you feel me?

It also a word you can use in terms of things goin’ on in yo life, ya dig. You may hear something I say and say that it "plies to me.”

Vibe: I’ve heard of a tool called a "pliers" and the term "applies.”

Plies: You know what I’m trying to say my nigga, just buy my album, I’m from the South, my nigga. We don’t learn no grammar. My Album out August 7, 2007. Cop three copies each. It’s Christmas in July fo’ real, ya dig?

Interview responses like these provide pertinent perspective [I master "p" like "UHHHHHH!"] to Plies' disdain for lyrical rappers.

"Not knocking any of the lyrical artists in the industry but what does that really mean? That means you're articulate.  I think it means you're clever but to me I think to be those things... I don't want to call you a liar but you have to be unrealistic to a certain extent.  You can't find a dude that's great with words that its 100 percent truthful as well." -Plies, SOHH.com

Translation:

"I done lissent to them ole fast-talkin, book-learnt-ass niggas before. Ain't nothin really help me in my comeup. If I can't understand what you mean, then you lyin. That's that. All these smarty-art niggas wit' they metaphors and grammar and shit, that ain't realistic. They plies. Them woy plyin to errbody."

I guess XXL and Vibe have diametrically opposed visions for Hip-Hop's future. One magazine runs a cover with 10 thoughtful MCs who, if nothing else, respect your intelligence as an audience. Vibe slaps the franchise tag on a nigga who not only muddles the difference between "pliers" and "applies," but likely can't spell either.

The saddest part is that I'm being told by the other officials to withhold my NP penalty flag today. Apparently, the scary shit is that this Plies nigga very well may be reflective of our future as all 10 XXL Freshmen combined may not be able to outsell America's favorite goon this year.

That's the realist shit right there.

Questions? Comments? Requests? Still don't know who da realist be? ron@ronmexicocity.com

P.S.: "Realist" and "realest" are not synonyms, my niggas.

P.P.S.: The first of you to use either properly in a sentence will get love on next month's Vibe cover.

More From XXL