It's 76 degrees in Minneapolis today, but for fans of Minnesota's favorite son, it might as well be Christmas.
That's because for the first time since his untimely death five years ago, His Royal Badness — The Purple One — Prince Rogers Nelson has new music out.
"Welcome 2 America," recorded in 2010 with the New Power Generation, is the first posthumous album mined from the legendary vault of recorded music left behind by the artist, and early reviews say it's a return to funky form to a music legend whose final releases before his death had not fared well.
Fans wanting to judge for themselves where the new album stands in the Prince lexicon can find it on Apple Music where, in a release from the company, they are invited to "listen live for free as Apple Music Hits takes you through Prince’s Welcome 2 America release, his treasure trove of classics on Apple Music, and so much more."
What in the name of Anthony L. Ray is going on in America? People can’t pay their rent, regular people are beefing about masks like the Bloods and Crips used to go at it over territory, and for reasons unknown to this scribe — the Bar-S Foods Company just dropped a “Baby Got Back” parody video.
Ok, so I do know a little something and of course a lot of the problems in the country today are pandemic related, but that doesn’t explain why the good people at Bar-S would waste what I assume to be at the least thousands of dollars transforming one of the premier club bangers of the early nineties into, well, a backyard barbecue anthem.
“Baby Got Buns,” you see what they did there, isn’t offensive because it changes an iconic ode to the female derriere and defying the rigid structure of what society has labeled as necessary to make a woman beautiful to embrace the natural diversity of women’s sizes and shapes — into a ditty about grilling. OK, maybe it is, but the fact that Vanilla Ice is the frontman for this foodie atrocity pushes it into the realm of a tier-1 culture violation.
How are you going to put out a “Baby Got Back" parody without the involvement of the aforementioned Ray, a true knight of American hip-hop better known as Sir Mix-a-Lot? The Iceman has plenty of hits rife with potential for parody. Sometimes, it seems like his rap career was one of more melinated artists with less mass appeal in order to sell millions of records, but I ain’t one to gossip so you didn’t hear it from me. Still, I would be lying if I said I never got hype when I used to hear the cymbals at the start of “Ice Ice Baby” and dust off my imaginary mic to spit in sync.
That said you can’t take the biggest hit from the Bard of Butts and expect the guy who did “Ninja Rap” to do it justice. The fact that Bar-S tried had me embroiled in a frantic google search after I first saw the video. For a minute, I was scared Mix-a-Lot was amongst the fallen and his musical legacy up for sale. Thankfully, I was pleased to see that not only he is alive and touring, but he is fighting to keep Seattle music venues open through the pandemic — with his own money.
After I took a breath, I realized that “Baby Got Buns” may not be art and Rob Van Winkle could never fill Mix-a-Lot’s iconic hat, but if two rap legends can find a way to still get paid 30 years into the game – Mix wrote his hit and I’m assuming the Bar-S people had to pay a nice fee to use it, music wins.
Watch the full video for “Baby Got Buns” below and decide for yourself, “But at what cost?”
The album once certified as the most valuable in the world has a new owner.
“Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” a 31-track effort by the Wu-Tang Clan that has gained near-mythic status was sold by the United States government recently to satisfy the remaining balance of the $7.4 million forfeiture order owed by its previous owner hedge fund manager and pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli.
Due to a confidentiality provision in the contract that protects information relating to the buyer and price, the exact number may never be known but Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, stated it was at least enough to pay out what was owed in a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release.
“Through the diligent and persistent efforts of this Office and its law enforcement partners, Shkreli has been held accountable and paid the price for lying and stealing from investors to enrich himself. With today’s sale of this one-of-a-kind album, his payment of the forfeiture is now complete,” Kasulis said.
It was the end of an infamous era in music history that began in 2015 when Wu-Tang mastermind, RZA, decided the group's seventh studio effort would be limited to one single copy in an effort to return music to the value of fine art, writing on a website at the time:
The music industry is in crisis. The intrinsic value of music has been reduced to zero. Contemporary art is worth millions by virtue of its exclusivity ... By adopting a 400 year old Renaissance-style approach to music, offering it as a commissioned commodity and allowing it to take a similar trajectory from creation to exhibition to sale ... we hope to inspire and intensify urgent debates about the future of music.
The DOJ release states that at the time Shkreli purchased the Album in 2015, it was marketed as “both a work of art and an audio artifact and that it includes a hand-carved nickel-silver box as well as a leather-bound manuscript containing lyrics and a certificate of authenticity. It also noted that “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which Shkreli attempted to sell online weeks after his conviction before the court-imposed forfeiture, is subject to various restrictions, including those relating to the duplication of its sound recordings.
