F**K YOU
There must be something in the water down in Atlanta that inspires an outpouring of creativity that rejuvenates the hip-hop world every couple of years. While Cee-Lo’s new track, Fuck You, featured at the top of this post may sound more like a pop record than the conventional hip-hop sound we’re used to, you must remember that Cee-Lo’s musical roots are grounded in the legendary Southern hip-hop group Goodie Mob. While his musical projects in recent years have been on the experimental end of the musical spectrum, he’s still a hip-hop icon.
After one listen to Cee-Lo’s new masterpiece, the first thought that crossed my mind was that Cee-Lo just pulled an Andre 3000 on us. His ability to flip an antiqued sound that, if not for lyrical matter, one might mistake for a record that was made 50 years ago draws strong similarities to what Andre did back in 2003 when he (or collectively Outkast if you want to get technical about it) released the song Hey Ya.
I remember hearing Hey Ya for the first time right before heading to a DJ gig at Ohio University. I was fascinated by the record and knew that even during a time when my record crates were filled with the latest offerings from Lil Jon and others embracing the crunk music sound– Hey Ya was still going to be a hit. I debuted the record the very same night to a crowd that was equally enchanted by the sound and by the end of the night had probably spun it 10 times over 4 hours, driving the crowd into a frenzy each time. Shortly thereafter the rest of the world discovered the brilliance of Hey Ya and my Mom started calling me to hook her up with “that Outkast song.”
The difference between Fuck You and Hey Ya is their ability (or lack thereof) to be commercially exploited. While Hey Ya became a staple of every radio station, television show and award program, Fuck You won’t receive any of that exposure. Sure, Cee-Lo could always remake the track with a radio edit and tone down the lyrics, but that would severely take away from the brilliance of the song. It’s the unexpected structure of the song that makes it so captivating. When one encounters a title like “Fuck You”, they anticipate something dark and angry. I’m sure Cee-Lo took this into consideration when making this record, which adds to the sheer brilliance of the composition.
What I believe will come from Cee-Lo’s latest release will be a great answer to those who have asked the question; how big can the Internet make a song? As I’m writing this, the Youtube video for the track stands at nearly 1.3 million views in 4 days. Impressive, but by viral video standards, it’s no Bed Intruder Song…yet. And let’s not get the two concepts completely intertwined. It’s one thing for a funny video to be passed around from friend to friend, co-worker to co-worker, etc but it takes a truly remarkable song to conquer those same demographic barriers. It will be exciting to see how the world embraces this record and whether or not it can be embraced by the mainstream the way Hey Ya was received. Outkast’s album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards thanks in part to the strength of Hey Ya. Will they show Cee-Lo the same sort of love for Fuck You?
DandyID
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