Lonely Island’s “Popstar” is a movie only for rap nerds— but I can fix it!
I’ve seen “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” 4 times. In 10 days. I mean, I like Lonely Island, of course. But I am not a Lonely Island die hard fan. For instance, I still find some old videos of them that I haven’t seen. But I have true love for the way they approach comedy. Most of the jokes on their fake-rap-albums are great, still hilarious after playing over 200 times — no hyperbole. Some are very good. A few are nah.
I like those dudes. They are innovative hard working people that are trying to build something cool for comedy. So after all these years doing comedy albums and hilarious skits for SNL, I was very excited about the idea of a movie.
I love their comedy because 1) it’s just so fucking original, creative and young 2) it is a great tribute to rap music. And unlike other “fake rap” acts, they don’t mock rap. Among all the references in almost every track — or even every verse — of their albums, you know that these kids love and respect hip hop. And even when they’re mocking the rap clichés, they do it so smartly that you can’t help but laugh at it.
Having said that, it comes as no surprise that I got mad to see the box-office numbers. The movie did well with critics but it is a commercial flop. With a 20-million-dollar budget, it’s struggling to surpass $10M in ticket sales.
The movie is great but that was never a guarantee of good box-office numbers — or at least numbers that could cover the budget. The story is simple, the jokes are amazing but I strongly think that to actually like — not even like, understand — them, you need to be a rap nerd.
I can’t teach everything about rap right now. I don’t know everything. I am a rap fan and I know enough to get the jokes in the movie. So I wanna make this sort of a, “dictionary”, so that you who really doesn’t get rap, can appreciate the movie the way I did. And oh boy/girl, I did. Cause this is just great comedy.
By the way, I’m not doing this for the 3 white boys. I do this for me. I wanna see them being successful so they can make more movies, so I can have more fun in my life. So don’t call me a hero.
It’s very important to understand that there won’t be spoilers in here. This is just a very quick wikipedia-help-type-of-thing about the rap references that you need to know to love this movie. Let’s go.
Learn enough about rap to understand, appreciate and love “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping”
Are you guys ready? Let’s go!
- Questlove is a very respected The Roots’ member. He is this fantastic drummer and highly praised inside the rap community. Hip-Hop legend, no doubt.
He is also on Jimmy Fallon, white people.
2. Nas is one of the most influential MC’s of all time. Very hard to find an MC who isn’t influenced by him. He made great albums. I have a few favorites, but it’s my legal obligation to advise you to listen to his masterpiece: “Illmatic”, an album that always comes at the same position in every “best rap album ever” list: 1st.
But I also love “Hip Hop is Dead” so fucking much. Anyway.
3. Usher is not technically a rapper. But play his bangers at any rap party and you got everybody sweating like OJ Simpson on those Hertz commercials. But it’s important to know one thing about him: either on his videos or live performances, he is this great dancer and awesome performer.
4. 50 Cent is kinda in a bad shape — musically, I don’t know about his gym routine, or how many carbs he ingests everyday. Once one of the top dogs in the rap game, since 2009 50 Cent only appears on the news when he’s online-beefing with some rapper, or trying to play hide and seek with Justice to avoid paying for some shit about his ex-girlfriend or something like that. I really don’t follow rappers’ personal lives. All I care about is rhymes. And through the last years — can we say a decade? — , his haven’t been very good.
A long time ago, 50 Cent was the boss. Sold dozens of millions of copies worldwide on his commercial debut and a very fair amount of millions of copies on his second album. His before-fame raps are just so freaking raw and crazy. So he might not be in a good shape, but you don’t see nobody (important) trying to front him. And that’s respect.
5. Big Boy is a very respected host of a hip hop radio show.
6. On rap, “catchphrase” means… pretty much what it means. It’s like the dope signature punch-line. So a “catchphrase verse” would be a verse made entirely of punchlines, with no actual bars, rhymes. Flashy but empty.
7. DJ Khaled is a man who has read too many self-help or “Art of The Deal” books. He is very popular on Instagram, living the life. He gives advice in a very strong, positive and scary way. I can not tell if his lines on the movie were scripted.
8. Ghostwriting is a touchy subject on rap. Sometimes rappers write lyrics for other rappers. They get paid, but quite often don’t get the credits. So imagine a song you’ve written for a friend wins an award and you never get to hold the fucking thing. That’s gotta mess with your brains.
9. A$AP Rocky is a very famous and hot new face on rap. Good albums, dope style, kids love him. He’s got enough respect in the game.
10. T.I is a very famous rapper.
11. Danger Mouse, top producer. He did that famous mashup “Grey Album”, mixing Beatles and Jay-Z. He also produced a few tracks for A$AP Rocky.
12. RZA. Wu-Tang producer and rapper. He produced great boom-bap tracks for… everybody. Legend.
13. Wu-Tang Clan is a very very very respected rap group, whose members did a lot of side solo projects, but somehow, were always together. For example, RZA, one of the members of the group, produced entirely the ODB’s, Raekwon’s and GZA’s (other members of Wu-Tang) solo albums.
Is everything clear? Read it again. Memorize. Maybe try some of their music on Spotify. I’ll give you some time.
Done? All right, time to hit the movies.
And by “hit the movies”, I don’t mean “hit the movies with an AK47” like that kid on the Batman screening. I mean “hit the movies” by buying some tickets and enjoy this great comedy.
And now you are ready to kick it like a Karate Guy.
