Friday, January 30, 2009

List of the Day: Top Ten Ludacris Guest Verses

First of all: Blog sidebar updates!

The concert calendar is looking incredible right now, with Noise Pop 2009, the always excellent Fillmore concert calendar, and (fingers crossed) the first day of Coachella 2009 (Hold Steady! Los Campesinos! Girl Talk! Ting Tings!).

The blog roll is equally promising, with Elliot's blog up and running, Brett's sandwich blog kicking off today, Ellard apparently having a blog now (was I supposed to know about this previously?) and Strong keeping his millions of readers on the edge of their collective seat for his next killer movie review.

Second of all: Lists!

So I know you guys love reading my endless essays about the meaning of music in culture. I promise to keep writing those intermittently. But, to be honest, I can't write one of those every day. Probably not even every week.

One thing I CAN do, however, is come up with a stupid music list everyday. So that's what I'm going to try to do. You guys at home can play along in the following ways:

1) Agree/Disagree with the list of the day
2) Make up your own list
3) Give me ideas for future lists
4) Link to people dancing to 'Apache' at WNBA games (Brett only)

That being said, on to the first list.

Top Ten Ludacris Guest Verses

I love Luda. I really do. He might be my all-time favorite rapper in terms of total enjoyment I've gotten from his collected works. That being said, he's never made a good album (Elliot, I know, you love Theater of the Mind ... it's okay). He's made a handful of awesome singles, and for that he deserves plenty of credit. However, the one thing he does better than anyone is this: he absolutely destroys any song he guests on. Here are a few of my favorites.



10) Usher - Yeah

Almost definitely his biggest hit, and someday you'll have to deal with an extended blog post about how this is the defining song of my generation (and whether or not this is in any way a compliment). For now, I'd just like an explanation of what it means to "milk the cow."

9) Trick Daddy - Sugar

Ilana said she'd put this song #1. Really, people forget how awesome Trick Daddy was for a few years there.

8) TI - On Top of the World

Aaron's Rap Song of the Year 2008. I don't really have anything new to say about it, except that it's great.

7) Field Mob - Smilin'

If you're looking for a rap group to consistently mention southern soul food (collard greens, neck bones, etc), look no further than Field Mob. Actually, they're kind of a JV Outkast, and I wish they would have gotten a little more shine.

6) Ciara - Oh

This video is the perfect combination of scary and hot. You know those rumors about Ciara being a hermaphrodite? I'm sure they come from this video. Guys didn't want to deal with the fact that Ciara would tear ... them ... apart, so they had to come up with some "She's half dude" explanation for it. Which probably didn't help them deal with how turned on they were.

5) Young Buck - Stomp

Bonus points if you're listening to the Ratatat remix. This song is really the only good thing that came out of the Luda-TI feud. I kinda wanted more, but apparently they're friends now. Whatever, guys ... that's not gangsta.

4) Missy Elliott - Gossip Folks

When this song came out, my friends and I didn't really know what to make of Missy Elliott. Her songs were weird. She wasn't in any way attractive. Large parts of her songs weren't even made up of real words. We weren't quite sure why she was dominating MTV. But then Luda's lights-out guest verse on this song got it into party-playlist rotation, and soon we were okay with Missy on her own. I know, it's touching. That's some after-school special material right there.

3) Jermaine Dupri - Welcome to Atlanta

It's possible Luda's verse here only sounds good because JD's sounds so incredibly terrible. I'm glad Luda goes first, so I can skip the rest of the song.

2) Nas - Made You Look (Remix)

The one where Luda shouts out all kinds of newspapers. I gotta imagine that rappers won't be doing that anymore.

1) Usher - You Don't Have to Call

We actually started drinking Raspberry Smirnoff because of this song (sadly, very few girls took their shirts off). This is the soundtrack to many random drunken college nights.

And also, something has to be said about

DTP - Growing Pains
DTP - Georgia

DTP is Luda's group (like D12 or St. Lunatics). So ... I guess his verses here don't count as guest verses. Still, it's not his song, and he only gets one verse. That's the recipe for Luda greatness.

Honorable Mentions

Big Boi - Tomb of the Boom
Redman - Future Thugs
Trina - BR Right
Shawna - Gettin' Some (Remix)

4 comments:

  1. aaron, you've provided the song, but you haven't actually said what the greatest luda verses are. are you just ranking them based on song awesomeness, or are you ranking them based on lyrical awesomeness? is there a particular lyric, or are you judging all lyrics together?

    i demand clarification.

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  2. We drank A LOT of raspberry smirnoff & dole fruit juice because of Usher + Luda. There may not have been many or any girls around to take their shirts off but I'm sure Ryan dropped his drawers.

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  3. Any concerts when we will be there?

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  4. "Yeah" is all the way back at number 10? I am still taking that and rewinding it back.

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