How Noreaga turned lemons into lemonade

Let me guess, Noreaga went out and copped a crib he couldn't really afford, during the height of that reggaeton craze.

As my Jewish lawyer in training Joey points out in this post, that song Noreaga did with Nina Sky might not have come on the radio once here in St. Louis. But from what I understand, it became so ubiquitous on the coasts that some cities created entire new radio stations to play it, that "Gasolina," and whatever other reggaeton songs there were.

Then one day people realized, en masse, that reggaeton is the most obnoxious sound possible, even more so than the production on the new Joe Budden album. Overnight, reggaeton stations switched formats to country or whatever, and labels dropped their nascent "latino" departments like a bad habit.

And damn it, if it didn't happen before Noreaga had a chance to cash in. By the time he actually put out his reggaeton album, no one gave a shit; and I'm not sure how much money you can make from having a song played on the radio ad nauseum. I'm not saying he didn't make any money. I'm just saying. It was probably just enough to buy some shit he couldn't afford to pay for once the checks start rolling in.

Hence the weight gain.

It doesn't cost very much money to gorge yourself on alcohol and fast food. Trust me, I should know. I was doing that shit before it was all trendy. Noreaga probably spent the next few years wallowing in his failure, getting tanked every day of the week, and eating at fast food restaurants so often they already knew what he wanted when he walked through the door.

Then one day he went to shoot publicity photos for a new CNN album, to try to get his career back in order, and he was shocked at how fat he'd gotten. But rather than put on an extra big jacket, to try to play it off, he figured he might be able to use his new gut to his advantage.

It occurred to him (and I happen to know this, because he said so in an interview), that if he took a picture of himself with his shirt off, a few blogs might post it, and it might "go viral," as they say. And wouldn't you know, he did, and it did.

Sure, he could just make a song that people actually like, and go viral the old fashioned way. But if he was capable of doing that, he wouldn't have gotten that fat in the first place. Indeed, many of these hip-hop blogs would hardly exist, if it weren't for guys like Noreaga, who need free publicity from anything other than writing a good song.

Take for example Nah Right, where I go to download rap music without paying. I remember when the last T.I. album came out, eskay posted a song from it. Then the label made him take it down, and he threw a bitchfit, as if no one was gonna buy the new T.I. album, if they couldn't download all of the singles for free from Nah Right. I'm sure Asher Roth's label, meanwhile, could care less how many times he shows up on Nah Right.

For all of the talk about Noreaga on the Internets in the past few days, I'm still not sure when his album comes out. It must be soon, though, because he's really ratcheting up the publicity stunts this week. I'm not gonna lie, I was gonna watch all of the videos and what have you and recap, but it's already getting kinda late in the afternoon, and it's such a nice day out. Hence all of the rambling about fast food and the eskay-baiting I just pulled out of my ass.

The question is: even with all of this shit with him and his latino cousin Perez Hilton, and throwing a cup of piss in some poor guy's face over some flowers (nullus), and whatever else he's been involved in, will anyone give a shit about the new Noreaga album? And more importantly, will anyone actually buy it? My guess is that they won't. Which is too bad, since it'll probably discourage other rappers from engaging in such shenanigans. I might actually need to cop on principle, similar to how I'll be buying a copy of Before I Self Destruct.