Everyone is talking about...

 

(pic from..well, you see it don't you?)

Well, everyone is talking about the AMAs, but not us. Award shows are like sporting matches: unless we're there to watch it live, and pumped regularly with adult beverages, we pass. I mean honestly, why even suffer through those things anymore? The best parts are online in the morning.

Actually, I did try and give it a try. I flicked on just in time to watch Eminem and T.I. be in the same category as Michael Jackson (strike one) and see Jermaine Jackson's woeful action figure spray-painted high-top fade get up on stage (strike two) and hear him praise Allah and I promptly changed the channel. And, judging by the clips online of falling divas, faux-shocking M4M antics, Rihanna'sTilt-a-Whirl disaster (oh honey, what were you thinking?) and Janet's geriatric gyrations, I didn't miss a thing.

No, what everyone is talking about now is the new Clipse video. In it, our homies from Virginia Beach -- who'll release another album on Dec. 8th -- are seen rapping in front of an Obama Fried Chicken restaurant in (where else?) Brooklyn. Apparently the guys shot the video guerilla style, because NYC isn't friendly to rappers shooting videos (No! Really? Why?) and basically, the sign was in the video at one point and then it wasn't when it aired on MTV.  

Well, good for them. No seriously. I mean, "Obama Fried Chicken" is obviously incredibly loaded, but at the end of the day, let's not pretend like miss Grandma Robinson hasn't dropped a wing and a breast in some hot grease for her grandbabies before. Insulting racial overtones aside, every American who eats meat has eaten fried chicken.

Yes, there are troubling connotations (if you dwell on them), but frankly, the image of our very folksy, all-American presidential family enjoying a good bucket of KFC is not at all controversial or stereotypical. Frankly, I'd be more concerned as a parent, about my child listening to the lyrics to the song. (Don't get me wrong, we love Clipse, but their music isn't for children.)

Would I have shot my video in front a no-doubt dingy, vermin-infested Brooklyn yuckfest which probably has the bulletproof Plexiglas and the spinning window, and three or four dudes in there splitting blunts and "hollering at shorty in the North Face?" Of course not.

But, whether they did this intentionally or not, Clipse's name is in the Times, on the Huffington Post, on MTV and here. That, my friends, is worth as much as 11 secret herbs and spices when you've got an album to promote. Get into it.

Watch the video for "Popular Demand (Popeyes)" here. Audio NSFW, duh.

 

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