In the history of television, there have been three monumental events: Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, Walter Cronkite announcing John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and Nancy Grace saying the words “Tity Boi.”
The last of which happened just over a week ago in her interview with rapper 2 Chainz and it’s already become iconic. The whole segment was like a beautiful little gift from God’s television. Her home town should erect a statue commemorating it. Aside from the fact that Grace was so overjoyed with the prospect of saying “Tity Boi” that she blurted it out of her talkhole within the first eight seconds of the interview, there was also a bottomless bucket of golden moments in store: Grace being hilariously misinformed on marijuana legalization, ad-libbing the words “big fat doobie,” her promotion of the hashtag “#pot2blame,” and the Twitter saint who successfully got their tweet on the show’s ticker: “How many marijuanas does it take to overdose?” Well, Nancy? How many?
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But 2 Chainz’s pilgrimage to Graceland was not hip-hop’s first venture into the 24-hour news media cycle. TV and radio hosts routinely invite rappers on air, usually to speak to youth or urban issues. And almost every time they do, the rappers are treated like children—being humored and infantilized in comparison to the smart, big important TV men and women who get paid to professionally read words into a camera every night (with the exception of Larry King who seems genuinely interested in hip-hop culture). Which is why it’s all the more hilarious when rappers shock them by—gasp!—stringing more than five words together in a cohesive thought. And while Grace was marvelously condescending towards 2 Chainz, the title of The King of Condescension belongs to none other than Fox News host and sagging bag of ham with makeup on it, Bill O’Reilly.
O’Reilly, by nature, is a patronizing ballbag, as demonstrated every night on his number one show (among people who post racist articles on Facebook), The O’Reilly Factor. Over the course of his 81 years on television, O’Reilly has repeatedly tried and failed to have rational segments about urban culture. His Fox News colleagues have dabbled in the fine art of hip-hop commentary—like former Fox News show host and future presidential primary loser, Mike Huckabee, doing a weird freestyle rap / outdated jive talk about President Obama’s “hip-hop pals,” or Fox News Blonde Anchor #336 Megyn Kelly’s reading of Eminem’s lyrics as some sort of motivator for the Boston bomber, or of course, talking hairline Sean Hannity trying to wrap his square head around the n-word with KRS-One. But none of them even come close to comparing to King Bill.
Here are a few highlights from Bill O’Reilly’s celebrated career of trying to talk to—and talk about—those dang ol’ rappers…
O’Reilly Clears Up That Whole Ice Cube vs. Ice-T Debate
Bill O’Reilly is contractually obligated to say at least one factual statement per year, which he did in this segment with fellow out-of-touch old white man Bernie Goldberg. The two were defending notable out-of-touch old white man Mitt Romney from a New York Times article that called him “the whitest white man to run for president.” That prompted Goldberg, in an effort to prove some sort of point about knowing a black person, to pull out a framed photo he apparently carries around of himself with rapper Ice-T. Except it wasn’t Ice-T, as O’Reilly pointed out. It was Ice Cube. The two then argued about this in a game of Which White Guy Is the Whitest?, which O’Reilly eventually “won” and took a victory lap by dropping the line: “I’m a brother, man. You can’t be doing that to me.” O’Reilly has a sister, Janet, so that’s probably what he was referring to when he said he’s a brother.
Cam’ron and Damon Dash on O’Reilly: The Stuff of Legend
Cam’ron and Damon Dash’s 2003 appearance on The O’Reilly Factor is one of the foundational texts of rap meme history. The three were having a panel discussion about hip-hop’s influence on inner city children, which of course in O’Reilly’s book is bad because all rap is violent and all kids are too stupid to understand fiction. Bill-o dangerously underestimated the two—both Dash’s savvy as an entrepreneur and Cam’ron’s willingness to make a complete mockery of the whole situation. Two classic Cam’ron lines spawned from this segment: “You maaaaad!” and “I got dirt on you, doggy.”
O’Reilly Tells Lupe Fiasco That His Opinions Are Stupid and His Fans Are Morons
In another SOMEONE PLEEEEEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN! segment, O’Reilly lectured Lupe Fiasco on the implications of his lyrics, telling him that Fiasco’s “constituency are not exactly political science PhDs”—unlike Fox News viewers who are across the board educated doctors and learned people of science. You’d think Fiasco, a prominent black figure willing to publicly criticize Obama, would be presented with some sort of Fox News Medal of Courage and given his own show after the one blonde lady’s talk show and before the other one. But for some reason, they couldn’t see eye to eye.
That Time O’Reilly Thought Common Was a Threatening Rapper
Naturally, as a result of spending all this air time with these rappers, O’Reilly has become something of a hip-hop expert. So he knows the most controversial, dangerous artist in the game and has identified him by name: Common.
See, back in 2011, Common was invited by the Obamas to the White House for a poetry reading. Approximately two people in New Jersey were upset about this because Common (who O’Reilly had totally, tooootally heard of before this) once wrote a song lending support to Assata Shakur (check out O’Reilly’s sweet diction of that name, by the way) who was convicted of the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. Ultimately, Common was a pawn in O’Reilly’s game of routinely criticizing the Obamas for the most mundane of activities, a practice which he has made millions and millions of dollars off of. But it’s still a great peek into O’Reilly’s hilarious lack of hip-hop knowledge, like when he says Common does “the usual rap stuff—touting guns and other anti-social behaviors” and is “controversial to say the least.” Yes, Queen Latifah’s romantic comedy co-stars and GAP models are controversial, to say the least.
O’Reilly Is Afraid of What Beyoncé’s Sexy Body Will Do to Children
Aside from Common, O’Reilly has identified the other major threat to the sanctity of our great nation: Beyoncé. Like fellow right wing middle age white guy with his finger on the pulse on the hip-hop community, Mike Huckabee, O’Reilly thinks Beyoncé is setting a bad example for young women by flaunting her body and sexuality. Bill O’Reilly, who once settled a lawsuit with a former coworker after he called her on the phone and said he would rub her pussy with a falafel, is concerned with what seeing Beyoncé, the world’s first attractive female pop star to ever embrace her sex appeal, will do to young minds. He takes his genuine concern for Beyoncé and her song about having sex in a limousine out on Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, who just wanted to promote his book about meditation, or as Bill calls it, “mediation.” He’s right though—what if this hot new trend of making songs about sex catches on? Imagine what that could do to music.
Bill O’Reilly vs. Snoopy a.k.a. Snoop Dogg
Man, Bill O’Reilly really loves pronouncing rappers’ names. He says them like he’s reading from the wine list at some exotic French restaurant. In this clip, he takes issue with Snoop Dogg after he said “fuck Bill O’Reilly” and that he would “kick his mother fucking ass.” In response, O’Reilly mocked “Snoopy’s” proximity to the “ghetto” (he loves saying that word too).
O’Reilly Talks Shit on Nas’ Album Sales
The “vile rapper” Nas, another hip-hop name that gives O’Reilly a little tingle in his tiny, wrinkled penis to pronounce, drew ire on The Factor after participating in an anti-Fox News rally. “Very few media” gave Nas attention, he said, and those that do “are corrupt,” unlike Fox News, an upstanding pillar of the journalism community, making other outlets incorrect by comparison. He then made fun of Naaaaaaas’ album sales and jokes, “I hope I’m not racist for pointing that out.” Not at all, Bill.
O’Reilly Is Jealous of Eminem’s White Guy Double Standard
Like Nas, Eminem is another “vile rapper” (See! Bill’s not racist, he thinks rappers of all races are vile!) who O’Reilly doesn’t care for. There seems to be some jealousy behind this. Why, he asks, is Eminem allowed to make jokes about Sarah Palin in his songs, but when O’Reilly makes a teeny little comment about legendary White House reporter Helen Thomas, calling her the “wicked witch of the east” and saying that he would’ve “poured water on her and she’d dissolve,” do women’s groups come after him? He brings radio host Tammy Bruce on to remind him what a wonderful, caring man he is.
Some Other Thing About Eminem
O’Reilly takes an innocuous 10-second clip of Eminem during an NFL halftime show and turns it into a pointless, rambling three-minute segment about absolutely nothing.
O’Reilly Hears “My President Is Black” for the First Time, Has Mind Blown
In a statement that will surprise so many, Bill O’Reilly admits in this clip that he doesn’t know much about Young Jeezy. But he does know about Jay Z, a “sane individual” who he has met a few times and says he should know better than to criticize President Bush on stage and sing “My President Is Black.” He then invited Dennis Miller on the show to blah blah blah some long-winded metaphor like a blah blah blah that blah blahed on the first blah blah of who gives a fuck.
O’Reilly Doesn’t Like Lil Wayne
You’ve really got to hand it to O’Reilly. In this one four minute and twenty second clip (4:20, good one, Bill), he manages to brag about how his salary has increased, drop a plug for one of his 1,300 books (not The O’Reilly Factor for Kids or that novel that deals with laying pipe and cupping breasts), and condemn both Lil Wayne and Al Sharpton. If you are a regular Fox News viewer, you’ll know that “Sharpton” is a subtle code word for “black people,” just like “thug” is code for the n-word.
Related: This other time, he and some other Fox News folks read Weezy’s lyrics in disgust after he accidentally stepped on the American flag.
Kanye West, Jay Z, and Beyoncé’s Lyrics Are Ruining America
Here, O’Reilly singles out the lyrics of Kanye, Jay Z, and Beyoncé and their “base entertainment” as being destructive to impressionable children and the African American community, which the “uber left” will not admit to because the “industry makes money.” You hear that, Kanye? If anyone’s gonna get rich off of base entertainment that negatively portrays black people and leads to the deterioration of the country’s intelligence, it’s gonna be Bill O’Reilly!
Dan Ozzi is on Twitter and has dirt on Bill O’Reilly, doggy. – @danozzi