Slang Editorial

Posted By: Daniel

I am a married man. It all happened about a year-and-a-half ago, I met Bittën (my wife) and we, you know, fell in love. That’s how it worked. She lived in New York then, so I went to visit her there a lot and stayed in her apartment. We sometimes watched TV. At the time, the hottest shit on BET was the TI joint in which he repeated asks what “[I] know about that”. We both loved it. We pledged at her dinner table to never lose touch with hip hop. I don’t think we have. I hope not, at least.

The new shit is good, but the old is special I can't really describe. Remember certain raps that were special to you in some way? Remember seeing their videos for the first time? My main man Patrick tells an awesome, impassioned story about seeing the first Cash Money video; he claims it actually SCARED him—the poor production values, Baby’s menacing, dead-eyed sneers… I didn’t see that jonk until much later and it didn’t do anything for me. I remember Cappadonna’s “Slang Editorial”, though. Shit was weird. What the fuck was he talking about?

Have you ever actually heard “Slang Editorial”? Do you know Cappadonna at all? (A “no” is hardly something to be ashamed of--he’s not exactly William Shakespeare.) I remember nothing of the video’s content, just that it had one of those inexplicable cutaway scenes and that the song was dope. Luckily, somebody gave me a copy for some reason. Buying it seemed kind of silly. I listened to it fairly recently, though, and it makes even LESS sense than I remember, which was none at all. Here are some lyrics, courtesy of LyricMonster.com, or Lyricdevil.com or something*. Can YOU parse them?

I came to the fork in the road and went straight
Right out the crack vile to the golden gate

I like that the person who wrote this felt that “vile”, rather that its homophone, was the appropriate transcription. Unless Cappadonna poorly translated himself from a Romance language AND was trying to diss crack AND claims to have come from crack, somehow, I think the “crack vial” is a better choice. But then again, it hardly makes any more sense that way.

See the silver spoon in my mouth it had cake
My rap birth date debut song was ice bait

Hmm? The spoon had cake? “Ice bait”?

Readit like a novel, donna cappa gone
Strivin my duns be dollars and coins

Someone’s DUNNING him? Really? They send guys around to collect on goose down Polo jackets and “light bills”? Perhaps this is poorly transcipted.

Side track you get japped with my lyric impact
Snap outta that, cappadonna seven sauna
Thirty three pirranha, chaos like iguana
Projects is rated x I flex and terminate
Sex mcs is wet so Im the right source to vex

Look out, pal. You don’t want to get “japped”! And if the piranhas don’t get you, the iguanas might (I had a pet iguana. They really can get nasty.) Also, is he saying he’ll “sex” other rappers? Men, too? Cappadona is harder to follow than the plot to the new Neil Stephenson novels. But what other MC’ll threaten to “vex” you?

Dart specialist, new cappadonna get treacherous
I rock track like a neckalace

He’s a dart (!) specialist? I imagine that skill complements his treachery well. Also, on the record he clearly enunciates “neck-a-lace”. That's not misspelt.

Protect my soul when the devil tried to get it
Seen my goal and stuck with it
Ever since a kid, early in a bid
Doin things you never did
All up in a staircase a scareface was lookin

This is my favorite shit in the song. Everything about it: the devil, “Scareface”… Solid gold, Cappadonna.

Wallet got tooken

Please, please, please… If you EVER have the opportunity to use “tooken” in a sentence, do it. Please, for me. Get you picture tooken, anything.

My slang is editorial explicit material
Breifcase yo, live in stereo flow
Feel me, donna realty
Set the black people free
Set the black people free

You have to hand it to Cappadonna. Nothing--whatsoever--he said makes any sense. I don’t even know what to do when confronted by it. I feel like my grandmother watching a Fat Boys video and saying “you know, some of these rap guys are really creative”. Which is true, I suppose. But what’s with this guy? GHOSTFACE is more lucid. He’s, like, the James Joyce of the Wu Tang Clan. Seriously, listen to SE and tell me what it means. Tell me!

*Tellingly, the site where I found this drivel also had the lyrics to “Evil Dildo” by, uh, Placebo. You tell me.

THE WAR: a review

By John R.
So I watched pretty much all of the new PBS documentary THE WAR these past weeks. This is a big long ass doc about that one war a while ago where we fought Germany and then China or something. I don't remember. It was a wee bit slow at times but was pretty awesome. Especially the part where the soldier is about to be beheaded by his Japanese captor and says that if he beheads him his spirit will enter his body and haunt him until the day he dies and the Japanese guy gets all scared and doesn't do it. NEWSFLASH! We could have won that part of the war with a few sheets thrown over our solders pretending to be ghosts coming towards them. Anyways the guy who made The War.....








KEN BURNS.....


















.... apparently got a lot of flack from the Latino community for not having any Latinos in it after it was done. So in return Ken Burns.....






















....added some stuff about Latinos to the end of some of the episodes. It pretty much screwed up the narrative and didn't fit in with it at all. When I first heard he was going to make changes all I could imagine was Ken Burns getting totally pissy about having to change his documentary and throwing a hissy fit like "OKFINE! HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS!!!???" and retitled it "The MEXICAN war" and played mariachi music throughout it. I also imagine whenever Keith David.....















.....was in the sound booth doing voice overs Ken kept interrupting him like "Don't forget to say all this in Spanish tooooo Keith! We don't want to OFFEND anybooooody!" in a fruity sing-songy Ken Burns voice. Then Keith goes back to talking and you just hear Ken in the background making crunching noises then yelling "OH SORRY AM I EATING TACOS TOO LOUD?" then finally Ken drinks too much tequila and just starts playing the violin in the backgound getting closer and closer until his head is touching Keith David's head and starts pushing him out of the way of the mic until we hear a struggle between the two then no music or no narration for the rest of the series.

What a pair!

LOOK AT THEM!!!!

Keith David was in THEY LIVE with Rowdy "Roddy" Piper for christ's sake!

and Ken burns.... (sound of needle scratching off record)

Holy crap look at this picture of Ken Burns I just found!!!!He's throwing a baseball and WEARING A SHIRT THAT SAYS "BASEBALL"

I also bet when he threw that he said "BASEBALL!"

Think about Keith David and Ken Burns hanging out together after work at the bar. I imagine Ken Burns sitting there sipping a margarita the size of his head and constantly going "Yeaaaaaah Keith David, MY MAN!" and making Keith David hi-five him while Keith looks annoyed into his scotch on the rocks wondering if it's going to be yet another night where Ken has 1 1/2 drinks then ends up shitting on the bar.
THE END

P.S. I know that was Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters and not Keith David.
P.P.S. The alley from that fight scene in They Live is in downtown LA off Seventh St. I found it a couple years ago and immediately recognized it. That's better than any celebrity sighting around town.
P.P.P.S. I totally wish Ken Burns was a pyromaniac who went around all creepy saying "Ken Burns.....trees" then sets a forest on fire. "Ken Burns....houses" "Ken Burns....people" etc.