Sat Jan 17

Berbati's Pan

Last summer, King of Crunk Lil' Jon told USA Today that the Southern rap stee is not about "being the best rapper. It's all about saying something that's going to get people crunk in the clubs." While it's fairly interesting that a purveyor of flossy/dirty mainstream rap says he's unconcerned with one-upmanship, even more remarkable is that flaccid neo-con daily USA Today was actually interested in Lil' Jon. The Atlanta rapper who coined the term, Lil' Jon and the Eastside Boyz flung crunk (as a sound) into the American mainstream last year with "Get Low," an aggressive club anthem with the bass, the booty, the squeaky tweeters, and the unmistakable Southern vernacular: "I like to see the female twerking/ taking the clothes off bucky naked/ ATL. Hoe don't disrespect it/Pa pop yo pussy like this."

The above lyric is not rapped by Lil' Jon, however, but by the Ying Yang Twins: D-Roc and Kaine. The duo has the graphic sex line on lock; one of their current hits, "Salt Shaker," is an instructive number to strippers who, incidentally, are "leakin'." "Work like a game that you playin' to win," raps D-Roc. "Make that pussy fart for the Ying Yang Twins."

Hoes and bitches and pussies and asses and titties, et cetera, ad nauseum. With the whompy, trunk-bumping woofers like their neighbors to the South, they also share booty-bass values--which include sex, up to and ending with partying. Granted, the Twins are pretty creative about it all--"leakin'," dudes, for reals. Yet, even painted in hyper-exaggerated, cartoon brushstrokes, even with a stellar answer track on the record (with Ms. Flawless and tha Rhythum playing Venus to the Twins' Mars), it's hard to reconcile lines like, "I can't stand when a women play the role of a man."

But crunk has left the ATL for the USA and it's here to stay: Ying Yang Twins guested on a song, "(I Got That) Boom Boom," for the new Britney Spears record, which slips a Bubba Sparxxx/Field Mob style banjo twang and a hog-calling "whooo-hoo" in the mix. However, perhaps for the sake of Britney's family, they tone down the humpiness of their part--no telling her to "make that ass clap," or to shake it 'til her "camel starts to hurt."