White People Rapping

A long long time ago, back in the early 1990's, to become a famous singer you had to get discovered by a music executive, and if you wanted to rap you had to be black or in the Beastie Boys. Now if you want to sing, you go on American Idol or the Voice and if you want to be a Caucasian rapper, all you need is a youtube channel. I have been playing basketball for 20 years now, mostly with black people, but not one of my black teammates has decided to become a rapper, yet two of my white teammates have decided to make rap videos and I have absolutely no idea what is going on in their heads. But I will breakdown their music videos along with some other better known white rappers.

Kanbeei Karlson - Peter Pan


I played at Fork Union Military Academy with Mr. Canby in arguably the worst year of my life. I didn't even think Canby was the most likely member of my team to become a white rapper, because our backup point guard Blake Brookman was already rapping back then. At military school they limited our television hours to weekends, so Canby and I would sneak into the planetarium to watch music videos on MTV. He acted like that was the greatest shit ever, which it kind of was in that prison of a school. I remember sitting in the planetarium one day while Canby outright laughed at his roommate's dream to be featured on Sportscenter. I wonder what Tarr would have thought if Canby had told him he was going to move to L.A. to be a rapper.

Anyway, Canby has actually put a lot of work into his art and is starting to gain some respect as an independent artist. He markets himself as a 6'10" rapper and describes his rhyming style as "a hybrid of true lyrical power crossed with intense visual word-play" on his artist webpage.  Honestly I think Kanbeei Karlson is a talented and already better than many rappers that have record deals, but I don't really think he has figured out his identity as an artist yet. Case in point is this video. Undeniably you can see his talent as rapper, but I have watched the video 4 times and the only lyric I can remember is a Tom Chambers reference and a couple mentions of his haters. What are you trying to say Kanbeei? I need more content! The flow is sick, he lands some decent punch lines, and the special effects are cool and I get what he is going for, but 75% of this video is him making digitally altered crazy faces in dark room which is kind of boring. I want to see more handshakes with random mustached men on the street (Might be his dad) and other shit like that. If I was marketing myself as a 6'10" hiphop artist I would make a song about being a damn giant, then fly to Asia and shoot a music video in downtown Beijing of Chinamen flipping their shit at how huge I am. Peter Pan punches was a good effort but not that memorable. I think Kanbeei has what it takes to make a hit, and will find it with time.

Jeremiah Boswell - I'm a Nerd, I'm a Dork


When I first met JBoz, we were 17 years old and he was the token white guy playing on a team featuring high school sensation turned NBA bust Kwame Brown. Later we would go on to share a glorified dorm room in the Strumica sportshall as teammates in Macedonia. Jeremiah actually has a lot in common with Kanbeei. They both are from Atlanta, played basketball, and mention Peter Pan in their music video. That is where the comparisons stop. Jeremiah is self-admittedly not a rapper. His first single "Christmas Go" was so horrific that it sapped the Christmas joy out of my body and made me think about celebrating Hanukah last year. "I'm a nerd, I'm a dork" is also a bad song, but at least it knows it's a bad song. Bad songs can do tremendously well. Just look at Rebecca Black's Friday, any music video from Bulgaria, or the Riff Raff video below. "I'm a nerd, I'm a dork" embraces its own corniness and is just catchy enough to possibly become an internet hit as a joke song. What the song lacks musically, it more than makes up for in the music video.  For an amateur video, the production and choreography is brilliant and there is nothing that gets me as excited as seeing someone get nailed in the face with a dodge ball. NBA players dressing like nerds and models embracing the "geek chic style" has already been well documented. Dork is "in" right now and Boswell takes it to the next level.

Riff Raff - Marc Jacobs

Words can not describe how awesomely bad this video is. Riff Raff is the Original Youtube gangster and stays "Leaning like the Eiffel Tower". The man is now immortalized by James Franco in the movie Spring Breakers.

Mac Miller - Frick Park Market

 Furries, huge deli sandwiches, glow in the dark body paint and outfits you would never see a black rapper wear. Mac claims that he "Aint no hipster" but he cleans countertops like one.

Machine Gun Kelly - Wild Boy

It's a pretty big change to see MGK go from dancing around shirtless in his music video to sporting a bow tie at the NBA draft.  Kat Williams doesn't look to happy to be there. I can't believe there is no Steve-O cameo in this video.

Beastie Boys - Fight for Your Right

The original wild boys.

I am pretty sure that orangutans don't listen to techno.

Australia is a special place. It is the flattest, hottest, driest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents. There are a lot of things in Australia that could kill you, if you are not eaten by crocodiles or sharks, the ten most venomous snakes also inhabit this island. Don't mess with Texas? Don't mess with Oz mate!!! Any country that was founded by over 160,000 British convicts has to be considered to be one of the most badass countries on the planet.

I have only been here a few weeks, so it is too early to make any judgement about the culture, but my expectations have already been exceeded. Admittedly, I didn't know much about Australia before I came here other than Australians like to drink and fight. I can verify that they like to drink, a lot, but sadly I have yet to see someone get their ass kicked. Because of the accents, I find it absolutely impossible to determine if people are ever serious, so I just assume everybody is joking all of the time. Here are a few other things that I have learned about Australia.

1. Kangaroos are kind of lazy. I haven't seen many, but the roos that I have seen mostly just lay around all day like Homer Simpson after a six pack of Duff.

2. In Australia, apparently, there is crying in basketball. I coached a kids camp last week and the amount of crying was unprecedented. Maybe my expectations are just too high after working with the iron forged Macedonian youth.

3. If you want a whopper you need to go to Hungry Jacks. Somewhere in Australia there was already a burger king who copyrighted the name first.

4. Electronic music is not just for Euros anymore. Although there is a huge punk movement in Australia, electronic music has definitely has a strong influence here. Every other radio station plays some kind of dance/trance/dubstep/etc. Even as I was watching a special on orangutans on television, between the babblings of Jane Goodall (who still looks smoking hot for someone closing in on 80) they were blasting techno music. I know that they have taught chimps to use iPads, but do we have to make these poor monkeys listen to Armin Van Buuren?