One of the worst things to ever happen to rap music is the influx of book-reading, shoulder-massaging, corduroy-wearing white guys. Nothing’s wrong with pale boys rapping – Mac Miller, Eminem, even that one song about loving college is great – it’s just that, generally, nerdy white boys suck everything great from rap. They cover songs like “Niggas in Paris” on acoustic guitars; they rap with the parlance of someone appearing in a hip infomercial on “street culture”; no one has ever appreciated someone attempting to rap at a house party.
I was reminded that nerdy white guys really need to stop trying to rap after watching a video of Daniel Radcliffe on Jimmy Fallon. If you want to watch it too, here it is:The video features Daniel – who played Harry Potter – rapping through the alphabet. My main gripe here, which happens every time a guest appears on a TV show, is the faux innocence and surprise shown on Daniel’s face when Jimmy asks him to perform. “What? Now? OK. Let me take my jacket off and remember everything I prepared five hours earlier.”
Daniel then proceeds to rap his way through the Alphabet Aerobics, which he is competent at, in the sense that he can do it quickly and with the right pacing, but terrible at, in the sense that he has nothing you could ever describe as flow. He’s not really rapping – he’s just reeling off words.Maybe I'm just a grump, but as far as I'm concerned, the only nerdy white guy allowed to rap is Krispy Kreme.
Annons