You know I keep that WHITE GIRL...

About a month or so ago I first heard the USDA (Young Jeezy, Slick Pulla, and Bloodraw) song "White Girl". The first thing I noticed was the beat, then I immediately started laughing because of Jeezy's reference in the hook to "white girl" being cocaine. Laughing out loud and nodding my head, I continued listening. Ya'll know what I mean, the beat caught me!

I listened to to Jeezy's verse..."Same ole' same ole'". Then Pulla's..."This dude's voice is ill." And then I listened to Bloodraw's verse..."B. Rothstein, who's that? He always says that! What does that shyt mean?" The beat was catchy/bangin' though, so I knew this would be a club banger. And once club bangers get popular in the South, it spreads north (to the epicentre of hip-hop) quickly.

I've heard Slick Pulla rhyme before and he doesn't really impress me in the same way that Jeezy's raps don't impress me. But at the same time, he's entertaining/funny to listen to just like Jeezy is. Unlike Jeezy, it's not because of his ad-libs, but because of how seriously he seems to take what he is saying when you know there's no way it could all be true. Jeezy does the same thing when he rhymes, but his ad-libs and awkwardly entertaining punchlines overshadow a lot of the other stuff he says. In addition to Slick taking himself a little too seriously, he has one of those voices that makes you wonder, "What does this guy look like", because his voice is soft but he's rapping about trappin'. Bloodraw has the same affect on you as well because of his voice. His high-pitched voice with his southern drawl makes you think he probably looks like Lil Boosie.

But with all that said, as I listened to White Girl, I realized that I actually like the song, a lot. Not because of it's lyricism or message (obviously), but because the beat bangs and their verses are just good enough for you to coast through 3-minutes of trap-talk. After my first time listening, I played the song back about 10 more times. Since that time, I have gone back and listened to the song occasonally and I've had conversations with two friends about whether or not naming the song "White Girl" could be considered offensive. Beyond that, I wondered if Jeezy's plan to build steam for the song (and the upcoming album) by recruiting white girls women to promote the song was in poor taste. Def Jam apparently shut down that idea, but the song is building steam on the InterWeb and I just saw a preliminary version of the video over at "Notes from a Different Kitchen". Check it out:



There's nothing special about the video at all, but (of course) there are white girls in the video and the ever-present backdrop is "the streets". I couldn't help but laugh to myself when I saw the first white girl come on-screen. But now this makes me wonder, is Young Jeezy a potentiallymarketing genius?

If the title of this song does ruffle some feathers and become a controversial topic, how much promotion will Young Jeezy and USDA end up getting free of charge when people like Bill O'Reilly and CNN get ahold of it? And if you think that possibility is far-fetched, consider that CNN ran a story about Young Jeezy's child support problems maybe a year or so ago.

In the end what you have is a pretty formulaic trap track. The title and theme are just UNoffensive enough to keep Def Jam from shutting the single down. Who's going to shut a single down because it's called "White Girl" when there have been tons of songs with the word ni99a or worse in the title? At the same time, "White Girl" could be considered just offensive enough (by some people) to cause a stir. In the end, there's nothing overtly offensive about the term "white girl" in and of itself. It depends on context. In this particular case, comparing white girls to cocaine really isn't that big of a deal (to me). It would be a different story if the song was called "White Girl" and they were making deragatory blanket statements about white women in general.

From a marketing standpoint, the concept may pan out to be either ingenius or that of an idiot savant (sorta). Considering it's Jeezy, Imma go with idiot savant. This is the same guy who said this:

I gotta riddle...Stack of 20 dollar bills/two bands in the middle

Forgive me if I missed the riddle in that. I'm a bit slow.

Anyway, if the song's title does cause a stir, he'll get tons of free promotion. In reality, who can stop him from saying "white girl". It's just non-offensive enough for most people to not care and it's seeemingly offensive enough to cause a stir among some folks. Jeezy might be a genius, by mistake. I guess it's like my co-worker said:

"If anybody should take offense -- I'd think it'd be my girl Christina Aguilera -- who shouldn't have her name taken in vain in a Jeezy song."

Maybe they should have tried to get Ms. Aguilera to be in the video, LOL.