Ghettosocks is a rapper, beat maker, producer, DJ, graf writer, and style icon I’m attorney-client privileged to have known for a little over twenty years now, and have been confident that we are actually friends for real for nearly half of that time, on and off. He’s funny, fly, friggin good at raps.
We were in different crews when we first met - first he poached (well, borrowed) this pair of cousins from Backburner to be in his group Alpha Flight, then we absorbed that group into our fold. The second time I ever met him was as opponents in an MC battle (back when it was freestyling on beats, before a capella hate crime slam poetry was the fashion) and I lost to him BADLY.
Anyway dozens of decades after all that, he was kind enough to let me pick a beat from a beat pack he was sliding around and after I rapped on it, he even built more dope parts into it and made the whole song just great.
Very similar to how I had solicited friends to appear on “Get Fresh” in 2001 or so by sending me wav files of themselves saying the title, I put a call out for homies to say “My dude” to layer into the refrains of this track just because there was part of the inchoate vocal sample that sounded like that to me, and I thought it was really funny. I got so many that I couldn’t fit them all, even after finding some gaps in the verses to squeeze in extras between my very hot bars.
I don’t have a lot of songs released where I take things sort of easy and calm like I do here… a few, and I’ve written a few more since, but I like how you have every opportunity to make out the words so it’s more clear than ever that it’s not just speed and intensity, but my diction and odd choices and lisp that make this stuff mostly only work well for an audience of one (not even me, I’m still looking for that one lucky soul).
I hope you like it at least a little bit!
Here are the lyrics:
My dude! My dude. My dude, My dude. My dude! My dude... Hey, my dude!
Your boss has the patent on profiting and when the planet's gone, they might have to cancel Capricorn.
Back before your favourite rapper was born, I whispered that his dad was wack. (Pass it on.)
My dude!
We used to play a game of broken telephone soaked to the skeleton in dopamine and serotonin. Couldn't get diagnosed, but they would sell us smokes. Tell a joke to yourself and hope like Hell to quell the loneliness.
Hey, best of luck with that! Back when a trucker hat was just a hat; (i want to) live forever like how long nothing lasts.
Before your cousin asks, there is glass in my lenses.
(footnote1)
The prescription is weak, but nothing gets past my defenses - I'm guarded like a castle keep even when I'm fast asleep. Half my rap opinions would be regarded as blasphemy.
That's how you know my love is sincere I've kept these judgements from my peers for like, dozens of years!
You couldn't drag it out of me with a thousand horses. You couldn't drag it out of me with a thousand horses. You couldn't drag it out of me with a thousand horses. You couldn't drag it out of me even if you had a horse.
It don't mean a thing a thing if it ain't got that semiotic coding, but it can still be plenty honest… or at least show aesthetic promise, plus
“Anything sounds profound that's said anonymous in quotes”
That's not the speaker being modest, they just don't want us to know how much they think they could have taught us; and by that token, they're more often banal than clever. Ask yourself: does this need to be spoken, now or ever? My dude!
How dare you suggest that I take my own advice? Just for that, I'm canceling my show and staying home tonight! Yeah, that's right - and I no longer tour often, so may the mild disappointment of dozens be on your conscience!
Mm hm. Bet you're sorry you spoke up. Deafened by the collective chorus of "so what?" like infinite Miles Davises on infinite trumpets and people say I'm sensitive or something, shucks.
You couldn’t drag me out there with a thousand horses. You couldn’t drag me out there even with a thousand horses. You couldn’t drag me out there with a thousand horses.
Honestly, I'm I don't really even— I'm not sure how the horses would help?
Get off your hobby horse, buster, we need the wood to build a stocks for shaming people whose deeds were good. The worst offenders who didn't learn the words to censor shall be burnt and rendered and turned to embers… unless they're pert and slender.
If you're cute enough, all will be forgiven.
Don't look at me, that's just how the policy is written. My dude! I can't pretend to think it's solidly positioned, but nothing is in any former colony of Britain. The only good “Laws” is Ronnie and Hubert, please remember that like lessons from your mommy at puberty.
I hit my creative peak at twenty-two or three but I'm a better person than I used to be, between you and me. What I've shed in fluency I've gained in patience. Very fortunate, my greatest strength: remaining stationary.
Got a lot of inertia to overcome, kinfolk— I shift slowly like the Overton window.
You couldn't drag me any faster with a thousand horses. Couldn't drag me any faster with a thousand horses. Couldn't drag me any faster with a thousand horses. You and all your horses could never drag me.
My dude. My dude! My dude! My dude! My dude, My dude. My dude. My dude! My dude! My dude. My dude, Aw, my dude. My dude, My dude! My dude! My dude. My d00d! Ugh, my dude, My dude! My dude, My dude. My dude Mah dude! My duud, My dude!! My dude! My dude! My dude? My duuuude!
What do you think? You have to tell me. Thanks.
This is one of many times in my lyrical career that I’ve made a play on a line from the now very old Ghettosocks song “Step To A T-Rex.” He said, “No lenses in the glasses, before your friends ask,” because he would often wear big empty vintage glasses frames for fashion in those days and that was kind of a weird thing to do so people would kibbutz about it.
I don’t know exactly why I always thought it was such a fun line - maybe because it’s being cocky about something that’s neutral? - but it’s been a favourite way to tip my hat to him ever since.
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