Not only am I a sexually deviant, misogynistic, immoral, wealthy, male prostitute, but I also sit on the board of directors of the organization that governs others of my kind.

That being said, those Notorious B.I.G. lyrics hardly need a gloss. And as was pointed out, the one reference to the Wayans brothers goes un-"translated", which sucks. There's plenty of stuff out there that's a thousand times more cryptic; there's plenty of stuff out there that goes over my head, and I'd love to see it glossed and analyzed. Like some of this for instance.

I actually went and dug up that copy of XXL. It's the first issue, cover has Jay-Z circa Reasonable Doubt (in the article the reporter's following him around Europe as he opens for The Fugees).

The Biggie article is called "Notorious Ebonics," and here's the leadoff:

Yeah, we know that the whole Ebonics thing played out some months back, but we had to make an exception. What you are about to read is one of the most ingenius things that we have ever encountered in our entire lives. A few short weeks after Biggie was murdered, it circulated by e-mail throughout the music industry, helping to break the tension for many of us.

This is supposed to be the winning paper in an Oakland public schools' language translation competition. The assignment was to translate Biggie's lyrics into standard English. In reality, it's a joke, although several people did think it was real. The original composer or composers have yet to come forward. Whoever they are, they should know that this thing brightened more than a few days.

And, oh yeah, please know that you will never see the word "Ebonics" in this magazine again.

Kinda surprised they printed the thing without knowing authorship?

must be why they never reviewed big l's last album