Update on Busta Rhymes’ song
I didn’t think anything could shock me more than the song, but the video to the repugnantly uninformed song accomplishes that feat.
The one good thing it does serve as a pedagogical model for how videos become “A-rab”: Arabic-looking calligraphic script for english beginning credits, throw a kuffiyah in the mix, featuring DJ Khaled is your video.
In my book, DJ K’s presence (that probably only served to Busta’s atrociously inaccurate song some Arab street cred) in the video deserves the most scrutiny. His posing ass could have, possibly, maybe, had some sense and used that prime positionality to provide a counter narrative perspective on the metanarrative view that Busta seemed to have absorbed wholesale into his rhymes. Like, possibly pointing out, “maybe you want to reconsider representing Baghdad as a clubbing hot spot,” or, “guess what, someone lied to you, because you are saying hebrew-phonic jibberish as the chorus-nothing phonically close to Arabic you brainwashed fools!” Okay, maybe I’d recommend a bit more of a diplomatic approach for, one of non-threatening persuasion…
No such luck, looking like a ridiculous Ummo Tariq, DJ khaled mouths the words to the song in a still, “Im getting A-rab money.” Wow. You might think or be of the opinion, that DJ Khalid, being the Palestinian he is, would have put his two cents in about Busta’s time-bending attempts to gamble with the dead Arafat at a “casino.” Well, maybe he did…as the “the ghost of Arafat” makes his appearance in the video. The hologramed image of a faceless man with a kuffiyah and aqal on his head (which means Arafat) sits at a table with Busta and his crew. I mean, the least this man deserves for disrespecting his name, Allah yarhumho, is for you to pay up for the graphics to digitize an Arafat face onto that “ghost.”
Moving away slightly from my indulgent rant about DJ K, let me enumerate some more thoughts about the video itself. Where the hell are they? Looks more like the background of a Narnia film than anywhere I could find in the Middle East-i mean oak trees and low-hanging clouds? snow-capped mountain tops? really? Well, I’ll give him some credit, the standard go-to stock of orientalist “desert locale” images aren’t running rampant in the video-which comes back to the quality of the video venture.
Just as insulting was the cheapness of the video: rented cars, a couple of kuffiyahs bought, a template background on blue screen, 2-3 hired actors, and just his posse and fellow rappers showing up as free labor and free association. I mean, if you are talking all big about “getting A-rab money” or having it, why don’t you use some to put towards the video? Why? Because at the end of the day, “A-rab money” means 3G a year!!!
Since the video on youtube has disabled embedding options, you will have to click here.
Interesting enough, he’s packing a little more than A-rab money in his gut these days…
And what did the A-rabs, perhaps of the non-Ummo Tariq-esque variety, think of it? Narcy’s response, replacing the hook of “(fill in the blank gibberish)” with “This song is totally racist right now” highlighted the ludicrousity of the song and video.
But, before you start accusing Narcicyst of playing up the defensive victim angle, check out his apt observations about Arab wealth (who “just sold us half Iraq”) and poverty in an earlier song.
What came out of it? How did a youtube video with almost 56,000 views compete with one with a million? What are your opinions about the videos?
