I want to see Michael White do these.

Oh. Not a Dom Passantino thread, then?

Was actually worried this might get mistaken for an American Apparel thread.

Oh. Not a Dom Passantino thread, then?

Zing arrived late, not in correct packaging, damage to surfaec. Would not be zinged by again. F.

It would be in your best interest to keep your woman away from me as my sexual prowess is very strong. If you are unconvinced, ask Puff Daddy.

No Ernie & Bert.

You gone too far this time
But Im dancing on the valentine
I tell you somebodys fooling around -
With my chances on the dangerline
Ill cross that bridge when I find it
Another day to make my stand, oh..
High time is no time for deciding
If I should find a helping hand, oh..

You have taken things beyond the limit that is normally found acceptable, but I am performing dance moves on top of a symbol usually denoting love and romance. I’m communicating to you that shenanigans of a possibly sexual nature are occurring, and there is an equal probability that I will succeed or fail, possibly catastrophically. If I am capable of locating a structure that conveys either people or goods across a chasm or river, I will traverse it; there exists another 24-hour period in which I will refuse to accept anything less than my goals. When circumstances have got to the point where lack of action is inexcusable, a sober weighing of pros and cons is difficult, that is, if someone assists me.

So why dont you use it
Try not to bruise it
Buy time dont lose it

The reflex is an only child, hes waiting in the park
The reflex is in charge of finding treasure in the dark
And watching over lucky clover isnt that bizarre
Every little thing the reflex does leaves you answered with a question mark

For what reason are you not utilizing that thing? Attempt to avoid inflicting damage that would result in a purple abrasion or edema. Stall in order to achieve your goal rather than reliquishing your grip on the linear progression of events.

The automatic response to external stimuli has no brothers or sisters, and it has found a grassy public space in which to bide its time. It has assumed responsibility for recovering riches that are in unlighted areas, and keeps a protectful gaze over a relatively rare mutation of a common cover crop. It’s strange, isn’t it? Each specific thing this automatic response does, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, counterintuitively responds to your queries with a symbol representing an interrogative statement.

roflex

There I is—major pain like Damon Wayans

haha in 20 years, hell now, kids will be like “Wha??”

Once upon a time I emailed one of these to a friend, and it somehow got passed along and along, and then a couple years later I googled myself and found it on the web with my name as the author. It was deeply creepy.

Especially since they get some stuff just flat-out wrong? (E.g., he doesn’t say that “they only receive penile intercourse and nothing more, unless of course, they douche on a consistent basis” — he says they only receive penile intercourse full-stop, and even that is only if the smell is decent.)

And he’s the player president. Not the ho president.

The Reflex

by John Ashbery

For what reason are you not utilizing that thing?

Attempt to avoid inflicting damage

that would result in a purple abrasion or edema.

Stall in order to achieve your goal

rather than reliquishing your grip

on the linear progression of events.

The automatic response to external stimuli

has no brothers or sisters,

and it has found a grassy public space

in which to bide its time.

It has assumed responsibility

for recovering riches that are in unlighted areas,

and keeps a protectful gaze

over a relatively rare mutation

of a common cover crop.

It’s strange, isn’t it?

Each specific thing

this automatic response does,

no matter how seemingly inconsequential,

counterintuitively responds to your queries

with a symbol representing an interrogative statement.

And he’s the player president. Not the ho president.
— jim (takeyourmedicinelikeacham...), December 20th, 2006.

Surely you mean the gigolo president?

If it’s any consolation, nabisco, someday “The Reflex” may be quoted in critical studies of John Ashbery’s work.

ashbery and his homiez berryman and o’hara come to lay down some phat rhythmz, show Biggie up for the poser he is

O’Hara and M. White: Separated at birth?

Poor bastard was levelled by a beachcrawler though, decidedly not the way Michael White would want to go, I’d have thought...

You have a point, however!

Was XXL really behind this?

I always found the popularity of this as an email forward as a double-edged sword. Considering most people forward this as a “HEY RAPPERS (ie, BLACK PEOPLE) DON’T TALK LIKE ENGLISH TEACHERS LOLZ” it still gets me really pissed off. But then I took a step back and realized that it would work just as well as a celebration of how deep, coded and intense a Biggie lyric is—just as rewarding to pick apart as Shakespeare—if only the translations weren’t so fucking over-the-top in their academic-speak and squareness.

Wasn’t this a Bill Maher bit? It frustrated me too for all those reasons, but learning that Maher is a big head (and is dating Karrine Steffans for a total WTF) made me reconsider.

the translations read funny (because they’re awkward yet stern i.e. taking things too seriously—the joke is on the ‘translator’ rather than the rapper, as it tends to be when doing this sort of thing), it’s as simple as that really.

you have explained comedy

Was XXL really behind this?

Yeh, I actually own the issue of XXL this appeared in. If I recall correctly, there was no writing credit on it.

xp yeah but i think you can read that as implying that “taking rap seriously” = a waste of time, because THEY SPEAK IN SLANG and TALK ABOUT SEX EXPLICITLY or whatever

If I recall correctly, there was no writing credit on it.

Come to think of it, that’s probably why this piece has been misattributed for years.

SANDBOX SOLVIN YR MYSTERIES IN OUGHT SIX YO

reason it’s funny = it takes the piss both out of the original & the caricature whose voice is posited by the “translations”—like most good humor, it’s not interested in showing appropriate reverence for its subject, it just wants to make fun of stuff

Especially since they get some stuff just flat-out wrong? (E.g., he doesn’t say that “they only receive penile intercourse and nothing more, unless of course, they douche on a consistent basis” — he says they only receive penile intercourse full-stop, and even that is only if the smell is decent.)

I wouldn’t say the interpretation of that line is flat out wrong at all, it says “they don’t get nathan’ But penetration, unless it smells like sanitation”. I never ever thought I’d be writing this but a douche is commonly used for sanitation purposes. No I’m not Finnish.

Bah no emphasis tag! Should read:

Especially since they get some stuff just flat-out wrong? (E.g., he doesn’t say that “they only receive penile intercourse and nothing more, unless of course, they douche on a consistent basis” — he says they only receive penile intercourse full-stop, and even that is only if the smell is decent.)

I wouldn’t say the interpretation of that line is flat out wrong at all, it says “they don’t get nathan’ But penetration, unless it smells like sanitation”. I never ever thought I’d be writing this but a douche is commonly used for sanitation purposes. No I’m not Finnish.

Yeah, the translation says that he would give “those wanting money” MORE than ppenetration if they douched. B.I.G. is saying they get mothing but penetration, and if they don’t douche, they don’t even get THAT!

Also, more evidence why we shouldn’t acknowledge this stupid thing at all.

I think the problem is the phrase “smells like sanitation,” which is generally accepted as meaning “smells like garbage”—but which I used to (like the author of the article) parse as “smells clean” (like “smells sanitized,” I suppose).

but i think you can read that as implying that “taking rap seriously” = a waste of time, because THEY SPEAK IN SLANG and TALK ABOUT SEX EXPLICITLY or whatever

does this mean you hate those ‘Windowlicker’ and ‘What They Do’ videos?

I’m mostly neutral on them (and this article), I just think that they can easily be taken (regardless of intent) as LOLZ RAPPERS R DUM.

Fuck people who take it that way. Some bigots watching Airplane might think the jive-talking bro’s are hilarious cuz “Yeah, negroes can’t talk right!” but that’s their own stupidity, it doesn’t mean there’s anything intrinisically offensive in the comedy.

Would it be as funny if you did this treatment to an Elvis song? To a Troggs song?

Funny, yes. Not as funny, but that mostly has to do with the outrageous attitudes gangsta rap expresses re: societal norms.

It could be as funny if you picked a really good death metal song.

Also, the fact that the language is so rich in rap allows you to get bonus mileage out of a translation. So, so much for rappers be dumb and shit.

Potentially funny: translating Joanna Newsom lyrics into gangsta rap.

It could be as funny if you picked a really good death metal song.

ohpleaseohplease someone do this....?

scott? grimly?

I can imagine a lot of rappers saying a lot of Joanna Newsom’s lines verbatim:

E-40: Should we break some bread/Are y’interested

Snoop: And even when you touch my face/You know your place

David Banner: And all day long we talk about mercy/Lead me to water, lord, I sure am thirsty

DMX: This is an old song/These are old blues/And this is not my tune/But it’s mine to use

Aesop Rock: (Pretty much anything else)

Morbid Angel’s “Chapel of Ghouls”

Lyrics:

Ghouls attack the church

Crush the holy priest

Turning the cross towards hell

Writhe in satan’s flames

TRANSLATION: Legions of undead creatures are laying seige to a denominational Christian house of worship. Said creatures plan to administer grievous bodily harm to the resident authority figure via a sudden and violent application of pressure, which will surely result in contusions and great discomfort. As a religious symbol of great import is inverted to represent a rejection of its implicit value system, it will also be set ablaze. This act yields a twofold result; adding further physical discomfort to the already-suffering religous representative, and also eliciting gyrations of a sensual nature on the part of those who have pledged allegiance to the diametrically-opposed teachings of the fallen archangel, Lucifer, of whom I consider myself a representative.

Lyrics:

Crush the priest

The feeble church

TRANSLATION: I order you now to join the army of undead creatures in their physical abuse of the clergyman. I have adjudged the status of the Christian religion as a whole and found it to be lacking in sufficient force to defend itself against attack.

Lyrics:

Dead—your god is dead

Fools—your god is dead

Useless prayers of lies

Behold satan’s rise

TRANSLATION: Currently the abstract sentient being that you worship is deceased. Belief in this single all-powerful monotheistic entity is surely a sign of buffonery on your part since, as I restate, this entity has ceased to exist. Therefore, your continued entreaties for the extinct spirit to intervene on your behalf are not only futile, but may also be patently false. Now please bear witness to the consequential elevated status of my preferred symbolic personification of evil-doing. Hooray!

Ah, it was worth a shot.

Naw, that was good.

Yes—Gates Of Delirium

The fist will run
Grasp metal to gun
The Spirit sings in crashing tones
We gain the battle drum
Our cries will shrill the air, will moan and crash into the dawn
The pen won’t stay the demon’s wings, the hour approaches
Pounding out the Devil’s sermon

translation:

The clenched digital unit shall sprout additional limbs and with them make rapid headway towards the scrapyard, whereupon it shall seize all residual scrap, creating from its confiscations a ballistic weapon. Meanwhile, an immortal, wraithlike chanteuse is experimenting with the use of trash-can lids instead of vocal-cords, although we’re about to counteract this cacophony with one of our own, since we’ve somehow got hold of a pristine military tom-tom and are probably annoying the neighbours with it. My, when our parents find us here we’ll wake the whole damn STREET up with our bawling! The very nitrogen-oxygen suspension we inhabit will find its vocal range shifted decidedly upwards, but we’re not stopping there, because when we get round to complaining about our cancelled privileges to Mom and Dad, the rarefactions and compressions occasioned by our lungs, throats and mouths will subsequently collide with the current time of day, it being virtually morning by the time we’re caught. Back to the magical world of dungeons and dragons, however, because our silly Spirit appears to be attempting to prevent a VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing)-class maleovolent supernatural being from taking flight, armed only with a basic water-based writing implement, and by now everything’s going to the dogs because the current time of day is getting slightly irritated by our noise and is stomping over to sort us out, stopping en route to deliver the Satanic Lectures via Morse Code to a bunch of gasping tourists...

Dude, he said “translate” not “McSweeneys-ify”

Rap lyrics are coded in such a concrete way, though — they’re full of such specific cultural references, metonyms, etc., that glossing them is possible and useful in a way that isn’t the case with Yes lyrics, or Bob Dylan lyrics. The Shakespeare comparison is OTM, some stuff in Shakespeare is totally obvious once you know a bare minimum of vocabulary, etc., but there’s plenty that escapes anyone who hasn’t studied the period and its vocabulary in depth.

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.

Better source for those lyrics.

Thanks, Rodney... it’s still missing that certain something, though.

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?

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

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

Snopes entry: http://www.snopes.com/politics/humor/raplyrics.asp