Mos Def - Ms. Fat Booty
As much as I hate the question, "What's your favourite song?" (in what context? In the club or at home? Damn you, High Fidelity), Ms. Fat Booty is typically my go-to answer. Yasiin Bey's former self pretty much defined where my proper taste in Hip Hop would end up. The soul-sampling chorus and song referencing make me dig for more music; a flow so casual and intricate that you get something new nearly every time you listen; and, simply and plainly, it's a rap song lacking ego about falling so relentlessly in love then being dissed just as quickly as it started. I need very little more to get on board.
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Like most things I've come to truly enjoy, I didn't initially like Mos Def (He will always be Mos Def to me btw, though respect to Yasiin Bey. Like, who else in the game is blessed with a rap name based on a constantly used expression. Like, if that were the standard I'd be DJ Like Like). In the eighth grade, I was, with a peppering of The Pharcyde and Digable Planets, still rollin' deep with Puffy & the Family and all the jigginess that Bad Boy kept company with. Forgive me. I never really followed gangsta rap back then and I was ignorant to the intellectual options of non-confrontational lyricism that Hip Hop offered at the time. I remember changing the channel from Rap City when the video for Black Star's Definition came on because, I mean, I was super shallow and I thought Mos and Talib Kweli were really odd looking.
Eventually I was sold on him. When I first started hunting for vinyl, his name for some reason shot to the top my list. I was upstairs at Foosh looking for Black on Both Sides, but it was already four years after its initial release. Instead I left with a Rawkus re-issue that had Universal Magnetic and If You Can Huh... on the flip. Rob said something to the effect of, "Oh I didn't even know we had this. I should probably pick one of these up." I didn't know him at the time, and it may have just been a good salesman's technique, but I left there happy to have copped what I did.
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Most people know this song for the amazing line "ass so fat that you can see it from the front." Easily the best lyric describing a big ol' butt and making this song worthy of its title. Obviously, Mr. Definitely never heeded the Poisonous warning of never trusting a big butt and a smile as he continues on to describe this bitch who'll eventually break his heart. His assumptions of her based on her appearance and how she carries herself turn out later in the song to be pretty spot on, so naturally, the lyric where he's completely wrong about her is the line that appealed to me most in this early encounter: Is sugar and spice the only thing that you made of? No. Sharice is a bitch. The answer to that question is no. The innocence that little girls are made of is no longer present in this terrible woman.
Lyrically, an hour later he finds this out as "sounds from Jamaica" are playing. I could NEVER figure out what he was saying at this point. There were no lyrics in the liner notes of the CD, and I could never put my ear close enough to the speaker to figure out what the fuck he was saying. That was until I finally saw the video when someone's handstyle popped up with the lyrics. I thought he was saying "some mans from Jamaica" (wrong, too many syllables) or maybe some slang I didn't understand. Geez. That was one of the most relieving moments of lyrical realization for me.
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I tried memorizing this song without ever looking up a transcription of the lyrics. I probably looked up more things he references than the actual lyrics. Is that dumb? I, for the sake of this blog, just looked up the lyrics and found out that the reason I never knew who Jane Kennedy is was because it's Jayne Kennedy. Turns out...a proper reference to a fine woman.
They finally make a connection and dance to Lovers Rock with her folded fingers on his waist. I knew of Sade, but looked up Lovers Rock after this and thought, Yo, wait. I know this is setting up the scene where you guys are whispering to each other on the dance-floor, but what the fuck kind club are y'all at that has a slow jam break? I've never been out when this has happened. I've heard of the idea of junior high dance theme nights and I think there's an R&B night that gets thrown once in a while around here, but I've never been around when slow jams were honestly being played for the floor. I once played out a Sade cover at like 8 P.M. and was told it was killing the vibe. There were like two people in the bar. I don't even understand playing jams like that in a spot with a dance floor.
They done been seeing each other for a bit and things all look great. More Sade is about to get played, this time it's Sweetest Taboo in the bedroom, where it's far more fitting. But maaan, she's playing him so hard! As she leads him to the bedroom, she's singing Gregory Isaacs. I was never and still am not very familiar with Gregory Isaacs, but the song is If I Don't Have You. She never quite finishes the lyric ("Iiiif I don't...if I don't..."), a testament to the genius writing of this song. Get out, Mos! He's caught up, mesmerized by her sweet singing...and dat ass. She pulls him in to believe that she needs him oh so subtly, but nope. Damn, Sharice got game.
The road Mos walks is a tough one. And he knows just how many steps he took along the way: one step too close to this girl. That's what makes the sample used throughout, Aretha Franklin's One Step, brilliant. Aretha sings about needing to stay one step ahead of her love to avoid heartbreak. Mos doesn't get as far as she does and is that one step too close to getting fucked over.
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This jam, man. "Simple and plain. Simple and plain," as the man himself would say. Basic human nature of being infatuated and being crushed. Sample, boom bap, raps about butts. While the answer to what my favourite song is will remain that that's an incomplete question, if you're persistent enough I'm going to default to Ms. Fat Booty.
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