How to Ride Dirty: A Beginner's Guide

So Chamillionaire’s new song “Ridin’” has an interesting chorus:

They see me rollin'
They hatin'Patrollin'
And tryin' to catch me ridin' dirty.

And then the chorus, “Tryin’ to catch me ridin’ dirty” repeats a few times. My question is this: How is this song not about anal sex?

At a recent beach party (Happy Birthday, Tiff), I assembled a mini Guy Council to discuss the matter, and we cracka ass crackaz present came to the same conclusion: that Chamillionaire didn’t want the cops catching him while engaged in an act of sodomy, which in some states is quite illegal.

But we whiteys were quickly corrected by more knowledgeable hip-hop connoisseurs (btw, this is not a word I know how to spell off the top of my head) that Chamillionaire is actually referring to driving in his car with the top down and/or the windows down and blasting his stereo system.

So, the part of the chorus that says “My music so loud / I’m swangin’” actually makes a lot of sense in this explanation. Before, I thought it meant that he had the music up so loud that he could do whatever he wanted, including be a swinger. You see, because I thought swang was ebonic for swing, just like Lil’ Jon says, “Snap yo fanguhz” in the song, “Snap Your Fingers.”

I’m not about to decry the state of music today. I like plenty of hip hop and I find most of the songs fun. Lil’ Jon could never lose a “What” saying contest, that’s for sure. And I think it’s funny for there to be a song about riding with loud music, but since I’m from Northern California, I know that tricked out cars and music blasting is a most serious matter, befitting only the “Rellest” of bros, miscellaneous homeboys and rap cognoscente.

We have so many musical choices today. XM Radio, Sirius, Yahoo! Launch are all fantastic outlets for variety. There’s this free station in Seattle that you can stream over the web that plays great rock and alternative. Sorry I can’t remember the link. The terrestrial radio stations just utterly blow. They post their damned playlists on their websites, which I think is a travesty, because it means they’re incapable of surprise. Normal radio stations can’t even play the songs they want. Can’t. They are actually prevented from playing songs not permitted by their corporate leadership, which has synergized their stations with the record labels under their ownership.

And as much as I appreciate the satellite stations and praise them in just the previous paragraph, I am quick to point out that the satellite experiment is going to soon become a horrible thing. There’s already commercials on these things that once promised no commercials. Their multi-channel offerings and overall variety is the only draw. Unfortunately, if you spend 4 consecutive hours 5 days a week listening to XM or Sirius as I did while driving around for the movie, you’ll find that their playlists – yes, playlists – are pretty much the same as terrestrial radio and that it’s pretty common to hear the same song on three consecutive channels (Shutup already, Natasha Bedingfield and The Fray). I’ve had more luck with variety on the Launchcast for Yahoo! If you’re an SBC Yahoo customer, you get the commercial free streaming music at no additional charge. I don’t recall the rates for non customers.

My ultimate point is that because art has had its lily-livered, candy ass handed to it by commerce, we’re going to have to start factoring in business models when making our entertainment choices. Music’s effect on us is 100% emotional, so, it behooves us to take into consideration in what mood(s) single-minded entities are trying to affect.