Flo Rida represents the apocalypse of music. There are no new melodies that can be created. No new innovation or creation of an entirely new genre. Through his two singles that are currently tearing up the charts, he has essentially become the eternal symbol for all that is wrong with the music industry.
It's safe to say Tramar Dillard, later to be known as the aforementioned Flo Rida, had little idea of the legacy he was going to leave. Born December 16, 1979 in Miami Gardens, Florida (Get it?), he began his fledgling career working with the local rap group, 2 Live Crew, who are largely famous for their evocative song,"Me So Horny", a sexually explicit song with soundbites from Apocalypse Now which would provide foreshadowing to Tramar's later career. He later formed an amateur rap group with some friends and somehow was able to conceive of a moniker that was neither intimidating nor provocative-"the Groundhoggz". After dropping out of college to focus on his "music", he made his mainstream debut with his geographically accurate single, "Bitch, I'm From Dade County". Worldwide acclaim and chart-topping success followed with the release of "Low" which featured T-Pain and boosted sales sky-high for both Apple-bottom jeans and the "Reeboks with the straaaappp".
Now when I'm tipsy up in the club and dancing, if you can call it that, I give little care to what the exact lyrics are of the song. I am a big subscriber to the maxim that Chris Rock once surmised, "If the beat's all right, I'll dance all night". "Low", despite the inanity of the lyrics and the archetypal themes of a guy at the club with an eye for brand-name fashion preying on a pretty young thing, if it plays at a club, I won't hesitate to stand up and groove. Yet his most recently released singles, "Right Round" and "Sugar"...I have a bone to pick with you Flo Rida.
Not only does Flo Rida reprocess the perpetual themes of sex, money, and name brands in his music, even his beats are recycled. "Right Round" samples from Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round", although Flo Rida's use of the term refers to the sensation he feels (Boner? Sexual ecstasy?) when watching a stripper slide her way down a pole. Inexplicably, he also samples the grating chorus of Eiffel 65's "Blue", a nonsensical melody I have been trying to forget since 1999, in his song "Sugar". "Sugar" is in reference to the taste of his sexual object's lip gloss, which if I recall correctly from middle school is most likely from the Bonnie Bell brand. Although logistically it's ingenious for Flo Rida to repackage these familiar tunes with a rap twist, it also marks the dearth of those great hits that tease and lure in the ear. Yet what is most insulting is that he tries to maintain the pretense of being an artist. His latest album, R.O.O.T.S., stands for "Route of Overcoming the Struggle". By contributing to the asininity of pop music today, you are continuing the struggle Flo Rida.
Moreover, lets just analyze Flo Rida himself. Talk about lack of imagination or creativity in fashioning his name. He was so lazy he just decided to call himself the state in which he was born-then make it "gangsta" by splicing it up and connoting it with a supposed different meaning. His flows come so easily that he just rides through them? Please. He has no decisive style, voice tenor, he is utterly indistinguishable from the other rappers who churn out sexualized pop crap like "Right Round". Unlike definitive rappers like Jay-Z, Tupac Shakur, and Notorious B.I.G. who developed their own linguistic style and covered material from "ho's" and money to the deeper ingrained issues of the Black Masculine Experience of America. Flo Rida? Well, money, hos, and alcohol remains the constant themes
Let's look at an example:
Shawty must know I’m not playin
My money love her like a numba one fan
Don’t look at my mouth, let her talk to my fans
My Benjamin Frank-a-lins
A couple of grands, I got rubber bands
My paper planes makin a dance
Get dirty all night, that’s part of my thing
Keep building castles that’s made out of sand
She’s amazing, the fire blazing
Hotter than Cajun
Girl won’t you move a lil closer?
Time to get paid, it’s maximum wage
That body belong on a poster
I’m in a daze, that bottom is wavin’ at me
Like da** it, I know you
You wanna show like a gun out of holster
Tell me whatever and I’ll be your roper
I can only imagine how that songwriting session went about. Flo Rida represents everything that is wrong with this country: the lack of reason, rationalization, innovation, or clarity. I dare you to challenge me.
In spite of all this, however, he sells =)
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