My Favorite Rap Album of All Time
When it comes to music, I’m pretty flexible. I’ll give anything a listen, and I consider myself to be the opposite of a musical snob. This is because I know that my musical taste is sporadic and occasionally homoerotic: I have a compilation CD that has both rock classics from The Beatles catalogue as well as songs from both Sister Act films on it, and if I put all of my music on an Ipod and hit shuffle, it is possible that “Stairway to Heaven” could be followed by John Stamos’ “Forever.”
It is obvious that my musical taste is somewhat squewed, which might explain my choice in best rap album of the decade. When it comes to rap, I’m a fan, but not a huge fan. I like the genre, but I spend more time listening to other music. But there is a rap album that struck my attention for it’s brilliance, humor and courage . This album is none other than Kevin Federline’s debut musical endeavor, Playing With Fire.
Before I go into the entertainment value of this masterpiece, let me preface with a little history between me and this album. When I was working as a financial aid advisor, everyone had pictures pinned up on the walls of their cubicles. After almost eight months of working at the company, I still had no pictures up in my cube. One day I was bothered by this, so I decided that I would rip a picture out of the US magazine I had at my desk and pin it to my wall. When I opened the magazine, the first picture I saw was of Kevin Federline.
One of the middle aged guys who I shared a cubicle with at the time was somewhat of a Britney fan. He hated K-fed, and since he was kind of a prick, I decided that putting this picture on my wall would not only decorate it, but it would also piss him off, thus killing two birds with one stone. So I ripped out the picture of him and hung it on my wall. Quickly afterwards I got the reputation of being the possibly gay guy who had a picture of Kevin Federline hung up in his cubicle.
Because this picture was on my wall, someone came up to me on a Tuesday afternoon and asked if I heard that K-Fed was in town for a concert. Since I was more of a mock fan at the time I had no idea of this, and when I looked online to see if tickets were available, I discovered that not only were they still available, but they were giving them away for free! All I had to do was pay a three dollar service fee per ticket, and I would be on my way to seeing this countries greatest white rapper. Discovering this was the closest feeling to winning the lottery that I’ve ever had, and I immediatly purchased three tickets for me and my friends Adam and Lindsay.
The timing of the concert was perfect. Kevin and Ms. Spears had just announced their separation two days earlier, and this was going to be his first concert appearance since the shocking news broke… and by shocking I mean completely expected for years.
The concert itself was worth every three dollar. Before singing his song “Dance With a Pimp,” K-Fed asked the ladies in the crowd if they heard that he was now single. After posing the question, he asked another one: “Which one of you ladies would like to dance with a pimp?” The women in the crowd went into a quiet, non-existent frenzy when he offered this service, and the proposal itself showed that the heart broken Federline was a posterboy for strength.
After the show, reporters were outside and asked the three of us what we thought of the concert. People were anticipating that because of the divorce, K-Fed’s career was now over, so Lindsay responded to the reporter by saying, “He’s back! He’s better than ever! Totally on top of his game! Amazing show!” The reporter looked surprised and said, “Really?” I then spoke up and inquired, “How do you say comeback in Brazilian? PopoZão!” Then Adam took hold of the microphone after me and said, “I will always pay three dollars to see a train wreck!” This left the reporter shocked and speechless.
A month later it’s Christmas time, and I found myself participating in a secret Santa gift exchange at my work. The rule was that you were supposed to write down three things that you would like to receive as a gift, and they all had to be under $20, and whoever got your list had to pick between the three things you put down. I thought to myself, “what are three things that I want, yet may never buy for myself that are under $20?” Only one thing came to mind: Kevin Federline’s album. I didn’t want to buy the thing because I wanted to continue to have at least a little bit of respect for myself, but if someone else bought it for me then my status as a respectable human being would still be intact. At least kind of.
Instead of listing three things on the grab bag list, I listed six, four of which were the Kevin Federline album. I wanted to make it very clear to my secret Santa that this is the gift I wanted the most, and his only other options were to buy me the Teen Wolf DVD or a $20 present for my girlfriend since I didn’t know what to get her for Christmas. Needless to say, along with a $10 gift certificate to Walgreens for my girlfriend, I received Kevin Federline’s smash debut record, which had ripped up the charts by debuting at #151 and selling 6500 copies in its opening week. To this day it has sold 16,000 copies, and like 15,999 other people, I have come to realize how amazing this album really is.
The album opens up with a bunch a little kid voices, all talking over each other. Finally, all in unison, the kids ask, “Grandpa, can you tell us a story about when you were young?” K-Fed laughs and says, “Gather round children.” Some may think it’s bold to predict that he will have that many grandkids when he gets older, but considering the staggering rate that this man is reproducing, 65% of the worlds population may have the last name of Federline before the year 2030.
After the kids inquire about K-Feds younger years, various real life newscasts involving Federline and Spears are heard, with reporters announcing that “According to sources, Federline’s marriage to pop superstar Britney Spears has reached it’s last straw” and “Once again, Federline was spotted partying at various Hollywood hot spots.” The newscasts go silent after these reports, and only sound effects are heard. These sound effects suggest that K-Fed smashes a bottle of liquor against a wall, gets up, and takes two Samurai swords out of their cases as if he were going into battle. This leads into his first song.
Although I believe this is the best opening to an album since Sgt. Peppers, I am aware that there’s a dangerous problem here: his grandkids are still around. With them in the room, he carelessly brakes a glass and arms himself with two Japanese war weapons. Yet the kids don’t scream or say a word when this happens, suggesting one of two things: either this is common behavior by drunken grandpa K-Fed and the spectacle is no longer frightening to even children, or he killed all of them. It may seem like a far fetched theory, but keep in mind, grandpa has swords and a drinking problem. This opening sequence is brilliant in it’s vagueness, and one may say that in it, Kevin himself is predicting that his grandfathering skills are going to be shit. However, Kevin shows in this album that his prediction abilities aren’t too great.
In his song “Lose Control,” Federline states, “…I married a superstar, you’ll never come between us no matter who you are.” In other songs he makes declarations such as “I’m fucking lady luck” and “I married snow money, she’ll rock n’ roll for me.” First off, it’s great how even though he went from being a struggling back up dancer to marrying a woman who is worth over $110 million dollars, he refers to her as lady luck. I love his confidence. Secondly, the album came out on October 31, 2006. Britney filed for divorce on November 7th, 2006, making “never come between us no matter who you are” wildly inaccurate. His prediction couldn’t even last more than a week after his album dropped, making him appear to be the anti-Nostradamus. Although I will say, I’m impressed with his physic abilities when in his ninth track, “A League of My Own” (possibly titled after the wildly popular girls baseball movie),” he states, “Budge me? I think not, I’m too pudgy.” At the time he wrote this lyric he looked like this: 
Now he looks like this:
Chloe the phone psychic couldn’t have made a better prediciton.
Speaking of predictions, track 8, “Crazy,” has Britney herself singing the chorus. Interestingly enough, the chorus goes, “And they say, I’m crazy, for loving you, for feeling you. And maybe, I’m a little crazy…”
She may actually be the second coming of Nostradamus.
Kevin Federline also displays his knack for contradicting himself, specifically in the songs “A League of My Own” and “Privilege.” In “A League of My Own,” Mr. Spears states, “Im not saying I’m the best kid, but I’m better then the rest is…” Hmm. I think that might actually be the Webster’s definition of the word “best.” Later on in that song he pleads that, “I’m not here to brag,” referring to the fact that he repeatedly mentions his newfound wealth throughout the song and the entire album. In the same breath, he states “My Ferrari costs more than your little S-Class.” He also raps that “one earring costs more than your budget,” “I’m in a whole other tax bracket,” and “it dont matter what you blow, you cant match it,” referring to the average citizens amount of spending money in comparison to his. Again, I’m not sure if he is aware of the definition of the word that he claims to be innocent of partaking in (in this case the word is”brag”), but it appears that he is doing just that. It’s adorable.
In “Privilege,” he states, “I got tired of drugs, so I switched to rap!” The chorus immediately follows this brave statement of sobriety, only the problem is that the chorus goes, “Lets get something to smoke…” I don’t think Federline is referring to buying a pack of Virginia Slims, especially since he makes over twenty marijuana references in his album, six in this song alone. It can be assumed that the once drug free K-Fed is now back on the wagon one lyric later, making his contradicting song style a frightening look into the harrowing life of a chronic weed smoker. Not since The Rolling Stones sang “Sister Morphine” has an artist so willingly put himself out there to advocate the struggles of a drug addict, making Federline a courageous performer.
One of my favorite parts of the album is how he keeps referring to his friend JR as a dog lipped bastard. I typically don’t agree with people when they say other human beings resemble animals, but after looking up a picture of JR, I have to agree with K-Fed.
JR
The thing I like most about Federline is that he is completely hilarious, which he proves over and over again in his lyrics. Such gems as “I’m handin’ out ass kickins’ like diplomas,” “I’m so high, I could probably drop a shit and fly,” “It’s going down like a fresh pair of panties,” and “I’m coming out like Janet’s titty at the Super Bowl,” make me laugh every time I hear them. If his musical career doesn’t pan out (it didn’t), he should be hired as a writer on the Jay Leno Show.
There are plenty of other things I love about this album, so much that I might need another website in order to list them all. I read recently that K-Fed might be working on a new album with the help of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. If that is true, on the release date you will “see me at the cross roads” of Locust Drive and Main St in Dundee, Il, which is where the nearest Best Buy is located.