Writing Archive

SUMFIN RANDOM

“Everybody get random/ All gyal dem, all man dem/ ...Jus' do sumfin random.”
—Lady Sovereign, “Random”

RANDOM "ASININE" THOUGHTS

“Get the fuck up outta’ my ear
’cuz I ain’t buyin’ shit this year…"
—Juju, “Préndelo,” The Beatnuts

Yes, that's right. Juju said it, and I repeat: I am not purchasing "shit" this year.

Whatever you got for sale, I don’t want it. Whatever bill of goods, ship it elsewhere. Whichever bridge to lease, go ask the next guy. I'm not interested. "Do you think I am innarrested? I am not innarrested one bit!" (William S. Burroughs).

POSTED: NO SOLICITORS.
BEWARE OF DOG.
NO DOGS ALLOWED.
CAKE IN THE DISPLAY CASE IS NOT FOR SALE.

Do not ask for the dessert menu: I’m not reaching for the check at the end of dinner. I’m not calling when I haven’t heard back. I’m not making the reservation, not confirming with voice mail, not responding to your wack-ass text-message. Re-can thy spam. I'll have none of that.

Whether you claim to love me one month or loathe me the next, adore me one week and evaporate six ways to the weekend, act your age or your shoe size, it's all the same, me vale, es ist mir egal...

"I'm English, try and deport me!"
—"Love Me or Hate Me," Lady Sovereign

I am no longer running your marathons. (I run my own track, through the snow, baby!) I am no longer jumping through your hoops. (This year: Nothing but hoops on TV!) In fact, I am no longer the one in pursuit. (High-speed chases kill many innocent bystanders every year.) Because I deserve a whole lot better than that. Yes, I do. Yes, I will. This is the year.

“Wake up and smell the Bustelo/ and say hello/ to this fly fellow/ word to my abuelo...”
—"Préndelo"

Instead of listening to your nonsense, here’s how I propose to spend my time:
...practice my SPANISH & GERMAN, to order you a plate of vergüenza-freude.
...learn KARATE, to kick your ass right out of my field of vision.
...pick up an INSTRUMENT, to play my own theme song.
...PRAY daily, for you know not what you do.

Seriously. Make way for the S-O-V.

“If you love me then, thank you/ if you hate me then, fuck you.”
—Lady Sovereign

These snotty thoughts popped up over drums and bass while I was stuck in office hours today with my good friend Google Video. And though I most sincerely will not be buying snot this year, the very next record I pick up will be the freshest tracks available from Lady Sovereign.

She's five-foot-one-inch tall and something like 19 years old, so her playfully childish nonsense-rhymes tap a fountain of youth from which the Beastie Boys, Beck, and Cibo Matto once supped, except this Londoner MC seems more like a cartoonishly cute derivative of Eminem, Ali G, and Andy Milonakis. Gleefully absurdist lyrics especially remind of Milonakis rockin' pancakes upon da' face, but with Def Jam-produced Ritalin loops, Tetris-themed techno scale-progressions, and quirky air-raid alarums over drum-and-bass over-lode.

The over-stated attitude of dressed-down, diminuitive braggadocio plays with sweet irony as foil against the machismo of hip-hop's over-sexed bling purveyors: "J-Lo's got a batty,/ Well you can't see mine cuz I wear my trousers baggy” ("Random").

(See Lady S-O-V spit on a crowd of knock-off-designer-purse peddlers in the "Love Me or Hate Me" video.)

Kicking Fergie's ass back to the gym for good, Lady Sovereign mocks all "high-maintenance chicks" and geezers with sing-songy self-proclamation:

“So I can't dance and I really can't sing.
I can only do one thing,
And that's be Lady Sovereign!”

Like the lady says: I can really only do one thing.

"It's off the cadena..."—Beatnuts