Posers

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: L.E.P Bogus Boys “Commas” track reaction

While flipping through the channels in a moment of boredom I happened just out of curiosity to stop on MTV Jams when this ridiculous example of what Hip Hop is not, came on. “Commas” The whole song is bragging about what they don’t have.

We immediately got a flash back of a horrible spoof commercial we’d seen from Optimum Cable from a year or so ago in which they had “Hip Hop” skeletons dressed up like the fools in the “Commas” video standing around selling the image of showing out “bling” as the way to attract customers from the inner city projects.

The Optimum commercial, we both found uninspiring and insulting and yet somehow L.E.P Bogus Boys managed to top that impression with their track Commas.

What we would call “Now & Later rappers” one can’t even call rappers because you need to at least be able to say something somewhat intelligent or clever to get ears to perk up.

For those of you out there of our generation (meaning 30 somethings who grew up during the golden era of Hip Hop and real talents) to witness the end of that era and the beginnings of today’s generation of “Hip Hop” artists, L.E.P Bogus Boys definitely picked the right name for their group. Bogus

In short L.E.P Bogus Boys are a bunch of wannabe non talent having jokers who’ve made a song that means little and adds nothing to Hip Hop as an art form other than to promote stupid stereotypical empty materialistic B.S.

The video for Commas furthers this by going back to the same ole formula of showing a bunch of fools with all this gawdy jewelry on talking about they need commas after their commas throughout the track while showing examples of unrealistic unattainable displays of wealth.

In one part of the video some female is in a bathtub filled with stacks of money and then shifts to a scene in a kitchen where cereal has diamonds being poured onto it as if the diamonds were the milk.

It’s all fantasy of course. However, the message we took from this heinous display is one, they don’t have a fraction of this shit they’re rapping about and two if you are dumb enough to believe them then buy their album buy their song so that while they rap about it now they can hope to get it later. “Now & later” rappers.

Then you might just see L.E.P Bogus Boys on MTV Cribs faking it once again showing a mansion that they don’t own, cars they can’t afford to put gas in, and others will think that’s how you become rich. All this without adding anything of value or substance to society or the people they are targeting with this utter basura they call music.

This is Lil Wayne’s hustle now. Lil Wayne isn’t fit enough to even lick the shoes of juggernaut greats such as Tupac & B.I.G, let alone go bar for bar with the likes of Nas, Em, Big Pun,Talib Kweli, Jay -Z, Scarface, or even Lupe Fiasco. However, we understand “the show” must go on and so this is the only thing they know how to do and the only method of selling records to youth who have forgotten, or are too young to recall, what real Hip Hop is.

This is exactly the point made by Kendrick Lamar in Big Sean’s “Control”. When they rap about being so great because of money and bling but have no real skill, and aren’t saying anything, we call that being utter frauds posing as artists. Support the real artists we say not this fraudulent crap!

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: POSERS A look at how we as human beings treat one another based on appearance.

Written by T.D Moody

Often times in life one comes across an experience seemingly so surreal they can’t believe it’s happening. Life playing out like in the movies. Is it really life imitating art or art imitating life?

Recently a friend relayed one such experience that she encountered out with some girlfriends of hers where at a lounge, a good friend of hers who was visiting from out of town brought along her uptight boss to hang out with them. I thought to myself she must have felt it necessary for job security or something to really hang out with her boss in her down time. She continued to say that it just so happened that her friends boss was celebrating his birthday that night so the pieces fell into place. As a kind gesture my friend offered to buy a birthday shot for her friends boss to which the boss sneered and looked her up and down before saying “My friend owns this lounge”. She continued to say that’s great but still I’d like to buy you a shot, so what kind of shot would you like? She says he looked her up and down again and then said Grey Goose and walked away from her. To which I said Wow!! He sounds pompous. At that moment my friend says her friend standing right there having just heard the exchange tried to diffuse the situation by making an excuse for her boss that he was just a little drunk.

She however, would hear none of it and decided she out of principal would buy the shot to let her friend’s boss know that she not only could afford to buy top shelf but that she had the class to follow through on her word. I stopped her at this point of her story to ask a question or two. I began by saying before I ask what you did next? I want to know the name of the lounge and what was the scene like? To which my friend replied the name of the lounge wasn’t important and that the crowd was mixed. Continuing her story she says that the boss was surprised when she actually came towards him offering the shot of Grey Goose and toasting him with one of her own.

She then went back towards her girlfriends and ignored her friend’s boss for the rest of the night. At which point her friend accused her of doing what she had done out of pride. I could see that as a possibility but my friends argument was that if it was pride and she actually couldn’t afford to buy the shots then it would simply be a matter of pride. Her argument was she had the money to do what she did and show this guy that his attitude not only was disrespectful to her as a woman but also because he presumed that she couldn’t without knowing a thing about her. She then said that in her mind that whole exchange was how she’d expect someone to act towards a poser. Someone who acts as if they have more means than they do in order to impress. I thought about what she was saying and it made sense.

I thought about how often I had seen people who clearly were out of their element drinking in clubs or bars and not have any money to buy their own drinks or tip when served. So this led me to ask my friend something that came to mind. Often times we as people look at and judge others on the way they look outwardly. We do make assumptions about people based on how they dress and carry themselves. So my next question to my friend was how were you dressed? His attitude could have been based largely on his assumptions he may have made about you based on how you were dressed.

Her response was “It doesn’t matter how I was dressed. I could have been wearing overalls if I wanted to and that would still give him no right to talk to me that way or assume that I couldn’t afford top shelf.” Just so happens my friend has a good job and makes really good money so for her it was the thought that this guy had that she couldn’t possibly have the means to buy what she offered and her reply would be to prove him wrong.

I had to admit her point made sense and was definitely the classy thing to do versus say throwing a drink in the jerk’s face.