Terror Squad
Lean Back
I don’t think anyone expected Fat Joe to blow up quite like he did (success-wise, that is). After the half-assed crossover attempt that was “Envy” (remember that B.O.N.E. cameo in the vid?), Joe watched an unknown Big Pun hit the mainstream with “Not A Playa” and suddenly he was second banana in his own squad. Joe then tried everything from rolling with Puff (who didn’t even appear in the video which is a sure sign that your song will not blow up – keep ya head up Mic Geronimo) to a Terror Squad longplayer but nothing really put him over the top. Then Pun died and his posthumous second lp didn’t make much noise and I dunno what, if anything, people expected from Joey Crack. How about a baby blue chinchilla and R. Kelly? And the rest is history. So coming off his decidedly uninspired last album, Joe tries again to get his crew some shine with another TS album and quite frankly, this shit is hot, thanks mainly (well, OK, totally) to the Scott Storch beat. Our video starts off with Joe walking through a hall with all sorts of fantastic personal memorabilia hanging on the walls including all his past albums – I’m sure it will get the middle school girls real busy trying to track down Fat Joe Da Gangsta on eBay. Out of nowhere, Joe proceeds to shout out Showbiz(!) and there’s a quick shot of dude tooling around in what I’m guessing is somebody else’s Benz. (Am I the only one that just assumed all of DITC other than Joe drive around in souped up ’94 Acura Legends with upwards of 175K miles on them? Think about it.) After blacking out due to the shock of the Showbiz cameo, I came to only to find Joe standing there with one female girating suggestively around him in a vaguely reminiscent of “Vivrant Thing” sort of way. Remy Martin then starts to kick her verse and thoughts start running through my head that she looks like some sort of freaky femcee Frankenstein all made up of like Kim, Trina, and Eve’s spare facial parts. It’s incredibly disturbing. So the house party is rocking away (get it?) and Lil Jon shows up but gets held up at the door by a bouncer (what, they couldn’t get Heavy D for crowd control?) just long enough to continue to play himself out a little longer by repeatedly yelling “What?” Other appearances include NORE, Kay Slay, and a blonde crackhead – I’m not even exaggerating, I seriously think she’s a crackhead. You’ll know her when you see her. Trust me. Joe finishes off the last verse, confirming my suspicion that not only do the other Terror Squad members not do anything but nobody even knows who the fuck they are. They only way I knew it was them in the video was because they kept cutting to a shot of dudes hanging out in front of a Fat Joe painting (classy) with some “This guy pays my bills!” type looks on their faces. And I would be remiss not to mention that aside from the previously mentioned “One More Chance” similarity, Joe is also wearing a B.I.G. t-shirt (Bronx represent!) and works in the “living better now Coogi sweater now” line, as well. It’s about as subtle as a faggot with a bag of dicks.
Nelly
Flap Your Wings
When this clip opened with Nelly driving on a winding road trying to follow what looks like the treasure map from The Goonies, I just about awarded it video of the year. It’s such a fantastic premise I was certain it would deliver the goods – unfortunately, it falls the fuck off quicker than Lumidee wearing lead pants riding a barrel over Niagra Falls (funny!). So Nelly and friend are in search of “Get Your Eagle On”, as clearly stated on the map, and finally arrive at a cave, which leads them to a crowd of people dancing around a tree. So the crew is getting their dance on while Nells decides to show off the fact that he has Pharell’s picture in his phone — if there’s anything gayer than Nelly taking photos of Pharell with his camera phone I don’t know what it would be. And then…Asshole with the Half Hockey Mask shows up! Fuck yeah! The best part about dude is that he stills wears the half hockey mask (chrome, even! where is he getting these made?!) — he’s seriously pushing for the longest riding of a gimmick ever. Damn, even Ghost dropped that shit after one album. So some broad grabs Nelly and drags him over to a hut, where…more dancing happens. He does manage to get off the Godawful line of “It’s OPP time, so let’s get naughty” – Christ, I think even Cam’ron passed on that one. Nelly also shows off his black AmEx card yet I find it hard to believe there’s a credit- processing machine anywhere in that hut. Let’s see, then this backdrop collapses and there’s more dancing. I should note that the flapping of the wings dance does look like some sort of pre-game stretch I had to do for my junior high basketball team — not only is it unsexy but I’m willing to bet the majority of the females in this video are now in wheelchairs. Finally, the video ends with Nelly macking some chick while other chicks catch him and are visibly upset about the whole thing. And just when you thought it was over, the classic “To be continued…” flashes on the screen – how many hip-hop videos have actually followed up on this promise? I’m gonna say somewhere right around none. Let’s hope this video isn’t the one to break that tradition.
Nelly
My Place
Naturally, this is the one to do it. The “continuation” is about the biggest stretch I’ve seen since that last Dirty Dancing movie (not that I saw it, but you know…ahem). So right where we left off on Get Your Eagle On island, his girl catches him with another lady and promptly throws her Derrty Entertainment pendant on the ground. I thought the saying was “A Derrty Entertainment pendant is forever”? Is nothing sacred anymore? Now we cut to what is an entirely different video – no island, no eagles getting on, no nothing – and an entirely different terrible song. Nelly is releasing two albums at once – the painfully named Sweat and Suit (“Yo, y’all heard Sweat?” – “Nah man, Suit is where it’s at!”) – giving us two videos at once, as well. While Get Your Eagle On was for the clubs, this one is strictly for the ladies with Jahiem on the hook and Nelly gettin all sensitive-like on some “I’m sorry baby” steelo. I told you rappers are pussies. So this video is pretty typical with lots of soft focus shots of luxury apartments and autos (with a particulary phallic Rolls Royce hood ornament moment – yikes) and Nelly trying to win back the love lost in the last video. He starts by sending her a hand written note and following up with a confrontational visit – hey, it always worked for me. So they have it out in the street where Nelly (in slo-mo, of course) makes the international symbol for call me sign while standing two feet away from the woman and yelling at her which really just confused the hell outta me. Next shot is girls night out while Nelly sits at home on his bed and working out (well, one curl) like a young LL minus any sort of lyrical ability. He then proceeds to throw a polaroid photo at the camera with amazing accuracy – I mean have you ever tried that shit? Watch out, David Blaine. Cut to a pool party where everyone is wearing white (so I’m assuming this was at Wimbledon) and Nelly walks over to his girl in the hot tub, says nothing, and she goes with him for some alone time. And then… Asshole with the Half Hockey Mask shows up! Awww shit! My man saved this video from the dreaded negative Anger Falcon rating by simply kicking it like only he can. Once this dude blows up, Nelly is so screwed.
Mase
Welcome Back
You knew this was coming – Mase is back to save the rap game. And now he doesn’t swear. What have I been saying? Pussies. This video starts with a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood take off which provides a fantastic opportunity for Mase to display his new acting chops. Dude seriously has like two lines of dialogue but apparently couldn’t remember them as he reads, and looks, directly at the cue cards while changing out of his suit into his hip-hop garb. For those not knowing, this song flips the “Welcome Back Kotter” theme, which got played out about three years ago (that AZ version was kinda hot, though). Mase proceeds to hit the streets and starts giving dap with reckless abandon to everyone within arms distance. And it’s good to see he hasn’t forgotten his dance moves from 1997 because he starts breaking them out about thirty seconds into the clip. Once the singing children chorus (never a good idea) kicks in, Mase is standing in front of bleachers of kids wearing a t-shirt with a giant airbrushed picture of his face on it. I kept waiting for him to turn his head to the side so it would look like one of those school photos with the big image up front and the scary floating head over the left shoulder. Next scene finds Mase on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, standing in a small roped off circle – like three by three feet. He can barely dance in it. Behind him an old white woman is also dancing which is funny because old white women aren’t supposed to dance to rap songs. I was like “This is crazy!” Diddy manages to make an appearance as a broadcaster and your man looks more than a little desperate for anybody on Bad Boy to start selling some records. As the video ends there’s a great cavalcade of guest appearances by people who are pretty desperate for exposure including Babs & Ness, Loon, Styles P, and Wyclef acting all kinda like “Hey, while you’re at it welcome me back, too! Please!”
Lil’ Scrappy
No Problem
In a world of endless “night at the club” videos, we should all get on our knees daily and thank sweet baby Jesus that Crunk music blew up the mainstream. There’s no such thing as a serious crunk video and when they’re meant to be serious, they turn out twice as entertaining. Case in point, Lil Scrappy’s (somewhat unfaithful) remake of Training Day for his “No Problem” video. Granted, I only saw the movie once or twice but I’m almost positive Ethan Hawke’s character was white and Denzel was not wearing gold fronts and the ugliest man on the face of the earth. Anyways the video kicks off with Scrappy waking up at 5AM on a bed with two fully clad female strippers – phone rings and it’s none other than Jon who lets him know that he’s waiting outside. (For those who didn’t see the movie now would be the time to go and rent it because I don’t feel like explaining the premise.) So their day on the beat begins with a leisurely drive through the ghetto where everyone from children to the elderly ice-grill them and some dude riding a bicycle tries to run them off the road. They pull to the curb and lo and behold, one Snoop Dogg (flanked by WC and Don Juan) is back reprising his role as a wheelchair bound drug dealer – Scrappy and Jon promptly reprise the chasing and beating of Snoop, as well. Rappers are such pussies these days, I swear – how you gonna appear in someone else’s video with the sole purpose of getting your ass beat? Character or not, that’s some weak shit. I mean, we all wanna see Bones 2: Still Bonin’ get made but damn Snoop, put out some more “Fa Shizzle” key chains or pot holders or something – stop slummin’ it. So after beating the handicapped, Jon forces Scrap to take a sip from a flask he found in Snoop’s bag. Scrappy, happy to oblige, takes a swig and things get woozy…for about seven seconds. Then everything is back to normal. Then we see the sun going down. So this all started at 5AM which means the hood cruising and wheelchair whooping took a combined total of about fifteen hours – what I wanna know is where is the rest of that footage? Can we get a director’s cut? Now it’s nighttime, which means it’s the right time for Scrappy to don his designer faux-bulletproof leather vest and go hang out with Mexicans. (Oh, like you wouldn’t put on a bulletproof vest when hanging out with Mexicans? That’s what I thought.) Scrap and Jon enter the house after a Soul Train-esque ice-grilling session, where Scrappy finds some eses sitting around playing cards. They ask him if he wants to play, but instead of dealing him in proceed to give him a pre-dealt hand which was sitting off to the side. Now, I understand that’s a bit foul, but Scrappy straight loses it and breaks a beer bottle and proceeds to kick all three of dudes’ asses. “Kenny Rogers ain’t got shit on me!” Scrap then runs out of the house, where nobody tries to stop him, hops in Jon’s car, where nobody tries to stop him, and drives off while Lil Jon is about five feet away on some “I cant believe he’s taking my car!” shit. All the Mexicans then start chasing after Lil Jon like it’s some sort of ghetto PCU. Amen.