Who Said Were Wack?: In defense of the lonely island

Who Said Were Wack?: In defense of the lonely islandBy Parisa FathiIn Roses chapter Hip Hop is Destroying American Values, she mentions conservative arguments against the music genre. One such argument is thathip hop lures white youth by destroying morals and civilization as a whole with its so-called uncivilized and dangerous influences. Rose points out that this argument is old, stemming from the rise of jazz music and the white youth who listened to its melodies. 1

Jazz, like hip hop today, had its fair share of popular, white musicians who arguably tamed the genre and made it intellectual like Paul Whiteman, who is known as the King of Jazz. 2

Today, we see the same thing happening: people are afraid of the music and lyrics corruption on white youth while whites are entering the genre and making names for themselves, such as Eminem and Macklemore. It can be debated if these white hip hop artists are taming the genre as white people did to jazz and if they have credentials or the right to participate in this genre.

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But what about these guys? This is Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg, better known by their group name, The Lonely Island. Youre probably wondering what do these three have to do with hip hop? Id say a lot. The Lonely Island has been able to take common tropes of hip hop and turn them into self-aware comedy bits without claiming to be something theyre not or giving into the pimp-ho-gangsta trinity. But the bigger question is are they hip hop?If you look at KRS Ones Elements of Hip Hop, The Lonely Island fits most of these rules. I could argue in favor of six, but will only speak about four.

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Rapping: By using Saturday Night Live as their platform and creating the SNL Digital Shorts segment, they have created about 101 shorts, with the primary means being rap. They rap about mundane and frivolous activities all while using self-depreciative humor. 5

Im on a Boat featuring T-Pain was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the Grammys in 2010; they lost to Run This Town by real rapper Jay Z featuring actual singer Rihanna and other real rapper Kanye West. 6

They parody street entrepreneurship: Lazy Sunday is about two guys going hard to see a Sunday matinee of The Chronicles of Narnia. They describe the ticket transaction: roll up to the theater/ticket buying what were handling/you can call us Aaron Burr/from the way were dropping Hamiltons. Theyre bragging about buying movie tickets and their cash flow of ten-dollar bills. Its so dumb. But it feels familiar. It sounds like other raps songs about hustling: like the use of words like roll up and dropping, or the word play and name references with double meaning, and even references to their money by the figure who appears on it.

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Fashion: Yes, even their outfits in their videos are reminiscent of those they are parodying. In the case of Dick in a Box and its spinoffs, they were directly inspired by the hip hop love songs especially Color Me Badd and their song I Wanna Sex You Up. Notice any similarities? Albeit they took this fashion from the days of MTV, but the fashion first had its place in the streets where guys were meeting their sugar honeys.

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DJing: Though the guys dont make their own beats or DJ, they do have tracks readily available. The Lonely Island over the years has been elevated to the world of real hip hop producers. For their second CD, Turtleneck and Chain, producer DJ Frank E did I Just Had Sex while CHOPS worked on The Creep. These producers have solid reputations in hip hop. CHOPSs production credits include Ol Dirty Basterd, Chamillionaire, and Young Jeezy while DJ Frank E has produced for Kanye West, Akon, and Lupe Fiasco. To quote The Lonely Island, these are real beats for fake MCs.

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Dance: Continuing with The Creep, this song parodies songs that feature dance crazes like Teach Me How to Dougie and Crank that Soulja Boy. The Lonely Island song gives listeners a step-by-step guide to perform the Creep and become certified. Though this song is about creeping on girls, its reminiscent of songs that tell listeners how to dance; I think Ive heard Cupid Shuffle at every school dance, wedding, and party and have since internalized its moves. Its the reason why old songs like The Twist are still popular today. Lets be real: White people love songs that help them to dance.

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After all is said and done, when asked about their hip hop card, The Lonely Island declines. They do not consider themselves real rappers, only comedians. They respect musicians and those who take the game seriously. There are often comparisons between them and the Beastie Boys, to which Andy Samberg says, We love and are obsessed with the Beastie Boys, but we consider them real rappers. We certainly have things in common with them. Like, were white. And there are three of us. And were all very sarcastic human beings. But theyre way fresher than us.

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Their influences stem more from musical comedians like Steve Martin and Adam Sandler. Their Emmy wins and nominations outweigh their Grammys. 12

But whats the hip hop communitys opinion? Theres no beef. Hip hop fans and artists get the joke. In a review of their first CD, Hip Hop DX wrote, "Its nice that someone finally cares enough about [hip hop] music to mock it properly. The Lonely Island are hip hop comedians just as much as they are comedic hip hop artists.

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