Humanity Critic

The Nappy Diatribe

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HumanityCritic's Favorite Venereal Disease Anthems

Posted 02/21/2007 at 5:24 PM | 2 comment/s

MCs desperately trying to save the world, one drippy appendage at a time.

Rakim was right: "It ain't where you're from it's where you're at!" But growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, I always wished that I had the opportunity to give golden narratives about block parties and DJ's plugging their sound systems into a light pole. I'm a firm believer that you can be from some Podunk town somewhere and still love Hip Hop as much as the next guy, but while I was listening to my headphones in the comfort of my childhood room, I secretly wondered if I'd ever get a chance to go to "The Latin Quarter," "The Rooftop" - even the Albee Square Mall for Christ's sake. I don't know if kids now experience the same thing that I did, based on the lackluster lyrical skills of MCs nowadays. But back then, the verbal imagery of your garden variety rapper was so clear that I wanted to battle motherfuckers on the L train, I wanted to say "Fuck Ed Koch!!" - and actually have a legitimate reason for spewing such a sentiment. I wanted the gold ropes. I wanted a made-to-fit outfit from Dapper Dan. There were so many aspects of the MC that I desperately wanted to experience firsthand.

My admiration had limits, though. For instance, I had no desire to experience a sexually transmitted sickness just because I both appreciated and enjoyed the venereal disease anthems that flooded the airways in the late '80s and early '90s. Full Disclosure here, I've never had an STD, I think... Let me explain: I dated this chick named Chalanda in my late teens who was the world to me, so much in fact that I probably would have killed for her or donated a spare liver if she needed it. (I know that you only have one liver, just trying to show you how deep my love was for this broad was. Try to keep up!) Anyway, she informed me via telephone that she had chlamydia and that I should get checked out as soon as humanly possible. I didn't know what chlamydia was, but I was scared shitless when I went to the doctor, as he informed me that he'd have to stick something up the hole that I pee out of to see if I was indeed burning like Hitler's Soul. Because I was shaking like a leaf, he opted to just give me the medication and forgo stabbing the one instrument on my body that would frustrate women for the next decade and a half. I don't even know if doctors should be saying this, but as I left he said, "Son, I think you are fine, but that girlfriend of yours? Well, her pussy is blowing smoke signals!!!"

I wasn't shocked that a gentleman in the medical profession was being so candid; I was just surprised that he quoted an Ice Cube lyric.

Kool Moe Dee, "Go See the Doctor" (1986): This song reminds me of a Richard Pryor stand-up routine: at the time I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I really didn't know what in the fuck he was talking about until I was much older. When this song was released I was hovering around 13; the closest I had come to sex at that point were the afternoon meetings I'd have with this white neighbor named Shelly where I'd rub her legs inappropriately. For all I knew that burning sensation that Kool Moe Dee experienced while pissing came from extremely spicy food. But as I got older, and each one of my friends' "wounded soldiers" fell victim to the Vietnam that was unclean vagina, it became unflinchingly clear what the resident of the "Wild, Wild West" was really talking about.

Boogie Down Productions, "Jimmy" (1988): The problem with dating someone younger than yourself is that you constantly feel like a relic whenever you name a rapper that she's never heard of; she stares at you as if you just asked her to write an essay on transcendentalism or some shit. The way she acts as if Silver Spoons was a show in the era of black-and-white television is wearing thin on a brother, and the way she says that I'm "old school" just because I refer to my penis as a "Jimmy," makes me feel as if I have one foot in the grave. I guess it all started with this song, possibly the best PSA when it comes to disease prevention that Hip Hop has ever known. This song is the sole reason that I always keep a condom on me. Granted, it's been in there since the Clinton impeachment hearings and I'm scared that if I ever use it that it will evaporate into thin air. But that's neither here nor there. I don't mean this to sound like an exaggeration, but I feel that this song saved my life based on how cool KRS made wearing condoms sound. Maybe this is too much information, but my lover named my penis "Rex Grossman," because it sloppily underachieves in tight situations.

Side note: If I was a rapper, this would be the song that I would use to diss the fuck out of Jim Jones. I mean, his name is in the title, and he is a diseased cock if you really think about it.

A Tribe Called Quest, "Pubic Enemy" (1990): Only Q-Tip could come up with a fairytale story about sexually transmitted diseases, albeit in his abstract way. If I'm not mistaken, this was a B-Side to "I left my wallet in El Segundo." I distinctly remember my mother knocking on my bedroom door and asking me, "HumanityCritic, are they talking about drippy dicks in that song?" (My mother, the delicate flower.) This is a classic track, and if I wasn't so much of a germaphobe I'd almost forget it was about getting burned by women who treat their vaginas negligently. Almost.

Ice Cube, "Look Who's Burnin'" (1991): Even though the man born O'Shea Jackson has been artistically dead to me for the last 14 years, he still ranks as one of my favorite MCs based on his musical contribution pre-"Lethal Injection." I always say that Death Certificate is one of the best albums of all time - what other artist can cover topics such as racism, gang violence, the black man in the military, the failing health care system, gun control, and venereal disease all in one album, and with the grace of Gale Sayers? From the opening skit, where a young man is ashamed to say what he is in the free clinic for and the nurse loudly asking him, "What's a matter, you BURNING!!!," you knew that Cube wasn't about to mince words when it came to the topic of STDs. Ice Cube lets out a verbal assault, talking about all the people he knew at the free clinic the day he was there to get free condoms (right Cube, tell a brother anything), and the careless behavior that caused each of them a free shot in the ass. Classic lines include, "Now she's sitting in the waiting room, burning like heat miser!," "First Ms. Thing, now Ms. Gonorrhea," "You'll hear more claps than a coliseum," and "You should have put a sock on the pickle/And your p*ssy wouldn't be blowing smoke signals!!"

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