Yeah, our Mama is fat! So what?
Does another Monday morning leave you feeling like someone’s dropped the beat? Well, The Nest has just what you need to start the week jammin’! This is the day we put on our gaudiest gold chains and unlaced sneakers and blast another def jam out of that 50 pound boombox of lost hits we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy’s got her record full of stolen samples from other songs ready to back the MC Sponkies as they lay down some killa’ rhymes! It’s time to take things to the old school, cuz we’re old fools….
The 1980’s saw the inner city underground rap movement start to trickle into the mainstream, boosted largely by the 1979 Sugar Hill Gang hit “Rapper’s Delight.” Soon, everyone wanted to imitate what people figured was just the latest musical fad. Deborah Harry of Blondie gave us a taste of what the rap scene looked and sounded like with the last half of her 1981 #1 song “Rapture.” Chaka Khan had one of the first pop songs to feature the iconic hip hop art of record scratching with “I Feel For You” in 1984. And of course, plenty of old white guys tried to get in on the act with painfully unironic attempts at keepin’ it real…
Including this old white guy….. well, kind of.
One of the last people you might ever expect to hear rapping is legendary stand up comedian Rodney Dangerfield. But in 1983, he released a comedy album called Rappin’ Rodney which actually featured MC Dangerfield rapping about his lack of respect…
That video played on MTV quite a bit back in the day, and even buoyed the song onto the Billboard charts! While it only made it up to #83, that’s still a hell of a lot higher than you might expect a novelty rap song by an aging, one act comedian to reach. The video is fittingly cheesy for its content, with Rodney Dangerfield apparently being sentenced to death for not getting any respect (or maybe crimes against hip hop)… featuring cameos by Father Guido Sarducci and none other than Pat Benatar as the executioner!
Apparently love is a Dangerfield.
I hope you enjoyed this rather bizarre footnote to 80’s “music” history. Join me next Monday for another song that gets no respect, no respect at all….
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
love the typical 80’s video… the girls rock!!!
Yeah, the singing and dancing is pretty good. The rapping…… well….
Rodney probably needed to stay on the golf courses and avoid the record studio. 😈
Aw, you’re not giving his rapping any respect! No respect at all….
My peep was at a sporting even where Chaka Khan did the Nat’l anthem. Abolutely horrid rendition.
Couldn’t have been any worse than Whitney at the Super Bowl…
OMG this is so much fun. Thank you ES for this much needed dump of silly.
Hey, are you doing the 10th Annual Contest of Whatever this year (or did I miss it?). Need to get Mandy and Jade in on it too. It ranks up there with Halloween and Christmas.
Yes, I need to get cracking on the Contest, as it would have normally started about three weeks ago. I do want to run a tenth edition even if only a couple people play, just so I can say I made it to a nice round number like that! Maybe this year I’ll center the contest around March instead of February…
Quite a repetitive and annoying song but some of the lyrics were quite amusing!
It’s basically Rodney’s comedy routine in rap form. Don’t know how big Rodney Dangerfield is over there, as I’d imagine his humor’s about as American style as it gets….
I’ve seen him in a couple of films so I know what he’s like!
I remember Rodney’s rap…..total nonsense but it was hilarious! I agree though that in that video everyone BUT Rodney did a good job. LOL
Pam