Image by Michael Alcantara
Day 257: "Sunday Night" feat. Lil Wayne – Big Tymers, I Got That Work, 2000This is an oversimplification, but if you want to know what the difference is between rap now and rap 15 or 20 years ago, it's that now there is a lot less bragging about all the cool stuff in the backseats of rappers' cars. In this song, for instance, Lil Wayne brags about playing Playstation in his car. He also talks about "different color Hummers looking like a box of crayons," which is poetic imagery that would bring Walt Whitman to his knees.And that's really just the beginning. Mannie Fresh—Let's Talk About Mannie Fresh—paints one of the most spectacular images in the history of English verse in his verse, describing his lavish home full of reptiles, his plans to turn the entire St. Bernard Projects into his house, and his swimming pool that says "Kiss My Ass" at the bottom. Most of all, though, he talks about all the shit in his cars: "trucks with chandeliers / he don't have America Online up in his," he begins, adding details about DVD players instead of VCRs, satellite TV, and a "three piece living room in the back of the caddy." He ties it all together with this line, the most wonderfully delivered set of internal rhymes I've ever heard, "Honey what you mean you ain't never seen a big screen in the back of a Navigator that's green?"If everything about "Sunday Night" doesn't scream "this should be played at loud volume this very Sunday night to commemorate the beginning of summer," I don't know what does.Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter.