I hate when recording ahtists place "[their] side" of contemporary personal grievances on albums and such. I can understand using one's fame with a format to "speak out" on a major issue like social injustice or needless wars, even if it's still incredibly annoying in song form, because those sorts of things last a long time and affect many people who aren't the current complainer. However, when the issue is "oh baw-haw, someone on TV made fun of me!" it comes across as shallow and conceited when this gets nationally broadcast repeatedly, and it is outright fiendish with the additional plea to pay money so I can relive the shallow conceit at my leisure. More, it proves that those responsible have no interest in creating an enduring product. Sure, that was proven a long time ago, but this proves that they know.

Who's going to give 3 beans about eminem 20 years from now when all his lyrics are specifically about people who dissed him 20 years ago? (I use Emenim as an example because he's the one who was doing this the most when I went into hiding back in 2002. I don't hate him for being a white rapper. I rather appreciate that, because I can dispute the merit of his craft without appearing as racist as I possibly might otherwise) I understand that sort of thing is a historical aspect of rapping, but that doesn't make it good. And then there are non-rappers like Brittanie Spirz and Pink (who I only mentioned because she has a song specifically stating that she is not like Britne Spiers) who are* constantly spouting off pouty self-referential doygadoy that no one can recall the origins of now.
*or were? Are they still popular? Eh, I meant people similar them, anyway. Figure it out.

If the only way to understand a recording is to have a supplementary stack of Entertainments Weeklies from the pertinent year, it's just not going to work well, because those themselves are designed to be disposable. They are about as close to that as you can get without a special label stating new convenient dumpster size! "Whoever is 'Fred Durst?' Let's see, issue 1257, February 18, 2001- oh, that's who he his. Now I remember, vaguely. I wonder, but only the slightest bit, what he said or did. Alas, I already feel like a twit for listening to or reading anything about him, and could not stand to do any more."

I remember, just because my brain is broken, that one of In Sink's later hit songs was just them complaining about how people label InSNK as "pop" and wish for them to go away. The song was titled "Pop" and En Synch went away not incredibly long afterwards. Justin Timbertoe was assigned to linger but possibly was the slightest bit less annoying when not combined into the Voltron unit.

You might read somewhere "Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as a criticism of the manager at a local Dunkin Donuts," but if he did, he did not state it outright and make it a major, blatant, unignorable aspect, and so the story can have significance long after the donut problem has ceased to matter, in the event it is a good story.

I hate his songs, but at least Elvis wasn't singing about The Colonel stealing all his money. Even if he was, the name "the colonel" is vague, and sinister, potentially kleptomaniacal in that vagueness, so it would still sort of work. Any generation can relate to its funds being diverted toward military operations, or, failing that, fast food establishments, both of which feature appropriately ranked figures.

And now I come to the specific incident that made this page happen. This page may be just as diaper-like as anything mentioned so far, but I'm not butchering untold numbers of wild CDs and plastic fairies to bring this to you.

Rapper Ludicrous complained several times a while ago that he was mad about how Oprah Winfrey, on the TV show she's named after, said disapproving words to Ludac and deleted his responses before the show was broadcast. He claims to have a multi-point rebuttal, but does not wish to express it until his next album. It seems that in the past he had problems with Bill O'Reilly (and who hasn't?) and also addressed them in this way. But this time he's just going to explain. So if that's all it is, a mere response, why not release a "public statement?" Paris Hilton releases statements on the most pointless things imaginable that I somehow hear about all the time, like who is no longer her friend, who she thinks is ugly or what her favorite color Flintstones Sour Gummy is. Surely someone with a valid argument could utilize this medium. Or maybe, I don't know, Mr. Cris could have said his bits at whatever place he was at when I was recording him talking (note that he happened to talk while I was recording rather than me starting in recognition of him). He could have explained in the time he spent explaining how he was going to explain later! Why even tease something like that? Who would pay $17.99 just for a civil clarification on one issue? This guy apparently is expecting that a whole lot of people would.

He has additionally complained that since he was on the O Show "as an actor," he should not have been held accountable for his actions as a rapper, edit or not. Maybe if I had raped a duck a couple years ago, I wouldn't appreciate having that brought up, but I probably didn't set out to rape the duck, and if I did, I didn't sell millions of copies of Duck Rape, Live at the Duck Pond, my debut album, all that while being quite proud of my deed. Ludicrous released his albums on purpose and got a lot of money for them, whatever the harvey they were about. It's not like he didn't agree with his own raps, and just did them because he was told to, so he could pay bills and such, in the hopes he could work his way through the ranks and some day rap about candy and kittens and rainbows like he always dreamed of without worrying about sales. And if Lood is so concerned about Oprah not agreeing with his lyrics, how does he think Oprah's going to feel when she's specifically mentioned? She's really not going to agree with that!

Back to birds, if Oprah had said to me "I don't agree with your duck relationships," I could rightly say I didn't think it was fair to bring that up, because I was eventually ashamed to have raped the duck and in no way encourage others to do so. Hey kids, if you see ducks, just throw rocks at them.

Ludicrous acts as if his situation is equivelant to interviewing Clark Kent and saying you "don't agree" with his saving the two big planets instead of the one small planet. I do declare it is not equivelant, for Clark Kent doesn't profit from Superman's actions (and often appears as a useless unreliable doofus because of them (and if I had known that movie was coming I'd have rewritten this to have the Bat-Man but now 'tis too late). Clark Kent doesn't get hot leads and sensational scoops by telling people he looked through their walls and saw embarrassing stuff he can blackmail them with, and Clark Kent also isn't offered acting roles based 87% on the fame he has as a rapper. Similarly, Actor Ludicrous isn't hearing about newly created area codes and saying "This looks like a job for Rapper Ludacris!" That would be radicalis.

On that same appearance he promoted his video game. Ehhh, someone else's video game, which he merely occupies a superficial publicity role within, though to hear him tell it, there's little else going on. I challenge you to find the one gameplay feature in this pitch. It has been said that you can play basketball, or have your character leave the basketball place and become, in the man's words "an entertainment mogul like myself." Those are the only two things you may do. That's a weird world. Maybe it is not feasible at this time to make a full simulation of more than two fields, but why those two? Why not basketball heavyweight champion OR ice cream tycoon? (and yes, I realize that before I've finished typing this parenthetical aside that some 2 dolla dumptruckware company will have made a game called "Ice Cream Tycoon" and Sid Meier cry) Why not entertainment mogul OR plumber? Why not deep sea pirate OR armadillo? This strikes me as the latest of numerous substantially creepy corporate endeavors to enforce racial stereotypes. I can hear you saying already "but wait, disgraced former mayor of Hairlessalbinoville, maybe Loadocrap just likes basketball! What's wrong with that?" First of all, no one can prove I was the one who accepted those illegal Skittles and stuffed them in my freezer, and second, I'd wager Ludeecrisp likes ice cream just as much as basketball. However, a combination other than of these two might not interlock as tightly with current demographic information and in addition to not selling as many copies may possibly lead to slightly different buying trends, requiring many tiresome board meetings to formulate new advertising campaigns to address! One needn't be a malnourished vagrant to see the conspiracy here! (I assume; if you have a home and eat regularly I'd be interested in knowing what you think / living with you / murdering you, grafting your skin onto mine and assuming your identity until all your money has been spent)

How can you even make a rap-based video game? It's not like the machine can hear you, let alone detect skill/ bland, marketable uniformity. Everyone knows console games only use their cognitive awareness of players to cheat against ones they don't like. I learned this over the years by observing and receiving the complaints of my brother playing otherwise reasonable games like Punch Out!! and Renegade.

Ludaswissmiss promises further, that in his video game, one can pick one's own jury! I think he possibly said "jewelry," but it might as well have been jury, what with all the "entertainment moguls" who have brought before one on major charges (id est: not jaywalking, marijuana possession or beet theft). Ludacrispix has never been so accused, but I hear that the guy from the video game was sending out AOL free trial disks, so look into that.
... what a great game. Basketball, rap, expensive trivial junk, court dates. The only thing that's missing is a bonus round in which you enter a fried chicken eating contest or see how drunk you can get before feeling inclined to slap some whores around. Naturally, selections from Ludacris's double-platinum album Chicken & Beer play at this point. In a brilliant cobranding deal, Budweiser signs on to provide all imaginary alcohol, in its biggest video game appearance since Tapper, and reminds players to drink responsibly.

This all reminds me, because my brain was constructed shoddily (as you might remember I already told you if yours functions similarly), of an ad for a clothing store called K&G (Kumquats & Grapefruits) which went a lot something like this:

Mopish white dork kid carrying a basketball: "Caye vuragra? (can I have your autograph?)"
Black man wearing suit: "If I must, o white dork."
White dork: [more dorkishly than previously conceivable] "Thank you."
White man voiceover: "Look like a million bucks, for one ninedee nine, ninedee nine."

Following that, the stupid kid walks away partially, with the basketball, and seems perplexed when he re-examines it. You see, since the black man shops at K&G, he 'look[s] like a million bucks,' and so the white kid thinks the man must be some famous basketball player, because those are the only black men who are millionaires or wear suits. Dork doesn't recognize the signature, because the man actually isn't a basketball player, but since all black people look the same, how can we tell who is who when they're wearing suits, now that any old black person can buy a suit for ghetto garbage can prices at K&G? Who runs that company, Sylvester McMonkey McBean?! Why, $199.99 is only about three day's worth of the crack cocaine! Such a period of violent withdrawl symptoms is a small price to pay for dull, uncomfortable, easily damaged and rendered worthless clothing.
And then the voiceover guy says "For men, for women, for less." Who is he implying is "less?" That's just nasty. Unless he means the kid with the basketball. I'd like to drown that dork in a bowl of pudding.

Anyway, regardless of sinister racist plots, Ludacrust is still full of beans, his video game is yarn soup until proven otherwise, and I'm still going to steal your skin and live in your house.

Which of us are you talking about?