Dear Mr Fiasco (if that is your real name, and I know it isn’t),
We go back, man. Way back. We were pretty tight. We grew apart for a while there, I know; you took unnecessarily loud breaths between sentences, I got annoyed and ventured into the back-catalogues of other rappers. But we were tight, man.
I thought you were the new standard-bearer of intelligent rap. Humble, poetic, more into the music than the image. One time, I cried on the bus while listening to you on my iPod; yeah, sure, maybe that’s lame, but you touched me, dude. Touched me deep. I even got that mix-tape you did with that guy from Linkin Park. It wasn’t that bad, I guess, but the point is: I actually purchased something involving someone from Linkin Park. I didn’t even do that for Jay-Z, bro. Not even for Jay-Z. But I did it for you.
Remember when I saw you at the Metro a couple of years ago? Yeah, I know you kind of showboated a little bit, and yeah, you did mess up a couple of verses. And yeah, you took your shirt off, but you kept your sunglasses on. Indoors. At night. But that was alright: the crowd loved it, and you were charismatic, poised, and skilfully on point. That night stuck with me, man, and since then, whenever live hip hop came up as a topic of conversation, I’d point to you as a prime example of how to do it right.
So when exactly did you start smoking crack?
That’s the only reason I can come up with your performance at Big Day Out. You were pompous, erratic, bewildering and yeah, maybe even a little scary. What happened, man? You used to be cool.
Okay, fair enough, I missed the start of your set, so maybe I didn’t get the contextual set-up for the finale… But my first thought when I walked into the weird slow jamz session with you pelvic thrusting on stage was, “Wow, I didn’t know R. Kelly was here.”
Standing at the centre of the stage, nodding your head like, “Yeah, I’m awesome”, and generally just revelling in your own glory for extended periods of time does not count as a performance. Unless you’re Kanye West, I guess, but you’re not. And that’s what I liked about you, man. That you weren’t like Kanye, even though you dudes were old Chi-town friends or whatever.
And so it was kind of ironic that you decided to close with a song about the vapidity of the hip hop industry, a song I used to think you believed in. But dude, yelling the lyrics, and missing every second line does not make the song more poignant. It makes it annoying. And it kind of makes you a shitty rapper.
But that wasn’t the biggest problem. Oh no. The biggest problem was that you are now, in fact, insane. What the hell was up with all that squirming around on the floor shit? What was that? Seriously, what the hell was that? Why did you lay on the floor of the stage with your legs raised perpendicularly in the air, and keep the beat by knocking your feet together in a scissor-like fashion? I don’t understand, man. Only ODB could have ever gotten away with that shit. You’re not ODB, man, not by a long shot. And if you wanted to be OMG SO ZANY, you should have been honest with me from the start. I understand that performers change and grow, but… no. No. No no no no. How you gonna play me like that?
That’s it, bro. I’m done. This is a betrayal I can never forgive. I’m actually glad I didn’t get a ticket to the sideshow this time. I’m not even worried about you retiring anymore. Oh, and I’m definitely not buying your next album.
I might download it, maybe, but only because I’m the kind of person who enjoys pressing my bruises.
