Today’s Irredeemable Rap Lyric: Boottee (Remix) by Benzino feat G-Dep and Fabolous
It's Matt Gaetz all over again...
Rappers say disgusting things.
Rappers always have and rappers always will. In fact, it’s pretty much in the job description. So it’s fun to look back and see what completely monstrous thing came out of some dude’s mouth who had just turned old enough to know better.
That brings us to today’s forgotten, 2002 release of a song called the Boottee (Remix). Released by Benzino, whom you might know from his current Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta fame. While this song features better rappers, it doesn’t matter for 2002. You make that shit, you release that shit, and you don’t spend no time arguing about it!
My favorite line in the song is one you can put right where “I regret ever thinking this was funny.” Stuff it right under that list of loose, bad lyrics that continue to infest my brainpan after decades. The kind of “things I wish rappers would get canceled over saying if getting canceled was an actual thing.
Here’s the video clip in case you don’t remember:
The line repeating in my head since this morning is actually Benzino’s:
Chauffer driven limousine straight out of prison.
That is by far one of the most ridiculous, yet “on brand” ’00 lines that rap music has ever produced. It’s not the irredeemable line that spawned this article, but as maligned a rapper as Benzino became, you have to admit he was capable of stuffing his entire presence in your mouth. That’s not an easy feat regardless of owning hip hop’s most powerful publication at the time, The Source Magazine.
No, the offending line does not belong to the song owner, but one of the guest rappers. It’s from G-Dep a.k.a. “Ghetto Dependent” a.k.a. The Great Millennial Hope of Bad Boy Records until he disappeared like every act associated with Sean Combs does at some point. He’s so hot in 2002 though! He gets to go last on the track! He gets to brag about how good he is at getting women to want him. He gets to tell us how little he cares if the woman’s “loose vagina” is able to purchase “great boots” by itself!
During his verse, G-Dep also tells us the following:
It’s all ages. You ain’t gotta show ID
Too young is a man in China
In 2002, after I first witnessed this tasteless dreck, I thought about how old this joke must be. Like there’s an old episode of Amos and Andy with a “too young is a man in China” joke in it. It reminded me of another bad joke about a Chinese man named “How Long” that you can tell people over and over again like “How Long is the guy’s name! Get it!? DO YOU GET IT!?”
Unfortunately, I don’t think it really registered exactly what G-Dep was trying to say.
As we’ve learned from all this recent manosphere stuff, liking “overly young girls” is a thing “real men” love to do. They must exploit the power imbalance. They must be seen as being older and wealthier. Then, more than the act of abuse itself, what they love is bragging about what they’ve done. They brag to their friends and families, their co-workers, like Republican Representative from Florida, Matt Gaetz.
That’s today’s most Irredeemable Rap Lyric.
It’s a line that G-Dep utters with the smarmy swagger of a man who’d say the same thing at the statehouse to all of his political buddies. He says it like it’s nothing to him… as if SHE’S nothing to him.
As I write about this, I get flashes from a book I’ve never read but listened to a Jamie Loftus podcast that analyzed the book, Lolita which I highly recommend. Our culture fetishizes abuse so hard, we don’t even have a good faith way of analyzing the narratives that grapple with the darker and most despicable elements in Nabokov’s novel like the lead character being the most unreliable of narrators. How do we miss that as a culture and just let Kubrick do a movie about it? We just remember the scenes, and the heart glasses, and put curious lines in our rap songs that sport that same energy.
Also, when G-Dep says it in the video, this image pops up:
I pay a lot more attention and stand for a whole lot less than I did as a younger media fan, still I can’t help but know what I know. These older songs showcase some pretty toxic stuff from guys who likely never bothered seeing each other when recording the song at all. So when you find yourself saying that perfectly irredemable part about what girl is too young to have to show ID, remember where that even came from. Take a second and analyze what you’re saying and where you learned it. Let’s try to find ways to do better.
Especially better than Matt Gaetz.