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Monday, February 27, 2006

What is that little freaky thing?

Usually by this point in the year, I've discovered a few things that I really regret leaving out of my best-of lists for the previous year. But right now, there's only one thing I wish I'd put in, and it is, naturally, a song from a cartoon, in this case an episode of Kim Possible that used American Idol in a plot point for a very Brain-like evil villain's attempt to rule the world. Kim is supposed to sing a song that will win the competition and thus foil the plot, but she is otherwise occupied and so her sidekick, Ron Stoppable, sings a song about his pet instead. His pet is a naked mole rat, and so he does a rap about it, with said rap also fulfilling a creative writing assignment he's been procrastinating about.

It should be an absolute bomb, but for some reason, it's not. It's very teenpop, which is good, and the hook's actually fairly fantastic, with the whole thing just being so comfortably silly that to me it sounds like an even better example of this whole quality-fake-rap thing than the SNL skit everyone went nuts for a while back. (It also helps that it reminds me a lot of DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.) It seems to come from someone who has an understanding of hip-hop production basics and then decided to consciously avoid most of them. There's also something oddly compelling about the way he delivers the chorus.

Above is the best option I could find on youtube, which is sadly not how it actually appeared in the episode; there are some pretty priceless cuts and visuals in that which are lost here, so if you've got a chance to see it, it's totally worthwhile.