If You Know What I Mean

I have this friend who is a master at the single entendre. And of course he always finishes with the obligatory "If you know what I mean." And, sadly, I always do. Now this phrase has seeped into one of the worst pop song in recent memory, Destiny's Child's Soldier. Now I was totally on the Destiny's Child bandwagon circa the Survivor era. During my Best Songs of 2001 countdown DC charted 3 times (Bootylicious - #6; Survivor - #8; Emotions - #43) and Beyoncé has made my countdown in recent years by herself. But Soldier is just bad on so many levels. First of which is the previously mentioned, "... if you know what I mean." And in the song it preceded by, "Known to carry big things..." As much as I don't want to, sadly I know what they mean. But there are things they talk about that I don't know what they mean. Like, "He knows how to split the money three ways." What do they mean by that? Does that mean the three girls get the money while the guy gets none? It makes no logical sense.

Then there are the rappers. First up you have T.I. whom for some reason thinks he is hard. I have no respect for a rapper who claims he's hard but when it comes down to it I could beat him in a fight. The guy even wears his hats like Antoine Merriwether of "Men on Film" fame. Then there is Lil' Wayne, who already violates one of my rules for rapper stating that all rappers with Lil' in their names suck massively (i.e. Lil' Bow Wow, Lil' Kim, Lil' Romeo and so on). Then to make thing worse, the Lil' one raps "Cash Money is an army. I'm walking with purple hearts on me." Um, does he not realize that there is real war going on right now where real soldier are earning purple hearts, not just rapping about it in a corny pop song? I doubt Lil' Wayne or the Antoine Merriwether wannabe could last one day as a real soldier.

There is another song that as might as well have a "if you know what I mean" in it, 50 Cent's Candy Shop. The line in question is, "I'll let you lick the lollipop." Or, "I'll melt in your mouth not in your hand." How sophomoric. Is this the same guy how wrote the eternally clever How to Rob? Of course that was back in the "Bashing Ja Rule" days. Unfortunately 50 has slowly become Ja Rule. Have a female R&B artist sing your hooks - check. Tell the female singer to "keep it between me and you" - check. Run with a talent less crew - check. Appeal to fourteen year old white girls - check. It's about time to have an intervention for 50 before he does a video based on a musical ala Mesmerized or worse a duet with Jennifer Lopez.