Hittin’ the big oh-nine like a blog

And we have a second Yogi to give away tonight. For those of you who are new to the ways of the Yogi, these are given in honour of he (or she or even they as the case may be in these PC times) who was smarter than the average whatever, just like the cartoon bear they were named after. Second one for 2019 goes to Boots Riley, writer and director of Sorry to Bother You, for a scene in that movie which involved a rap tune called “N**** S***”, which had just those two words over and over. That showed just how lazy rap music has become almost 40 years after the Sugar Hill Gang’s seminal hit Rapper’s Delight. The lyrics of the latter were in no way about black people’s feces, and the tune - let’s just say the people involved actually earned their keep given the resources they had back in 1979. For instance, there were no tape loops or autotune back then so the bass line had to be played for almost 15 minutes by hand without making a mistake. And the lyrics, while somewhat boastful like many a rap tune, didn’t need any political statements or profanity to make their point. Unfortunately, those days are over.