Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Blaxploitation 101: Trinidad James & The One Bright Side


Well well well, first let me say it is a good day to be Jamaican, because if this young man's name was Jamaican Jones or something I might have had to hide my flag and put all my Rasta accessories in storage.  But I digress.

For a little while now I had been running on a post election high.  My people turned out in numbers to vote, Barack Obama was still my president and all might not have been right with the world but it was alright with me, that was until I watched Trinidad James' All Gold Everything video.

Yes I know bigger things could have shocked me out of my post election euphoria but for some reason Trinidad James did it.  For me it was like he single handedly massacred any progress or positive images Black people had created over the past however many years with one song.  And the proverbial salt in the wound was Def Jam providing James with a 2 million dollar record deal!

Now for those who haven't heard this track it might sound like I'm being a little extra but trust me, check out the video right below this before you finish reading this and you'll see what I mean.



*SPOILER*  This video is filled with struggle and ratchetness and I'm pretty much convinced that if Super Fly and Ike Turner magically had a baby and let Khia raise it this would be the result.  All shade this buffoonery is just depressing.  Now I do enjoy the occasional ratchet song and sometimes I can't help but to blast some 2Chainz and act hood rich (IN MY HOME) but there has to be a limit.  I'd like to blame the artist for this foolishness but he wouldn't have gotten a deal and had this much buzz if there wasn't a market.  So I guess it makes me wonder whose the biggest sell out Trinidad James, the ever opportunistic Def Jam, or us the consumers. 

One good thing to come from this however is a parody entitled "Belizean James- No Gold Nothing" created by Lamorne Morris (Winston from the TV show The New Girl).  This is probably the most hilarious thing I've seen all year.  Thank you Lamorne for this silver lining.

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