WOEBOT

So far I've tolerated Black-Eyed Peas. But now, I'm afraid, the time has come to single them out for ridicule and vilification.

What's their stranglehold on the UK charts all about? Are they big in America? Some part of me suspects that they're not, and that they function as a surrogate Pop R'n'B, an R'n'B even less challenging than R'n'B proper, which let's face it isn't that grueling a listen to begin with. From this perspective I don't see the need for an alternative to R.Kelly and Missy Elliot. Can we think of acts like this in the past who re-branded Black Americana for the UK audience? Tina Turner, I suppose. She was always bigger here than in the US.

Is The Black Eyed Peas appeal to the mainstream audience based on the fact that there are white people in the crew, as well as black folk? The 4 step skin colour gradient between Will, Apl, Taboo and Fergie (I've done my research...) might almost have been devised by marketing committee; the focus on the woman Fergie conceived to ensnare the largest audience demographic, her appeal constructed as it is poised between sistahood and pan-racial sexual desire. Maybe these aren't such mysterious questions at all?

Hopping between fashionable Indo-Hop, sanitised Fugees re-licks (some people dislike The Fugees on the same grounds, but me I have a soft-spot for Wyclef) and now retro Electro. It's with "My Humps" that I've gotten got the hump myself. All those other tunes were harmless enough I suppose, catchy pop music but this is really appalling. Call me old-fashioned but I've never liked the term "Shorty" meaning girl (look it up). There's just something at once demeaning and also teeny-cloying about it. That's slang that doesn't work. "Bitches" on the other hand, "Bitch" works excellently, if you're a woman I imagine it's a good term to get working for you. There's an excellent Sa-Ra track doing the rounds as a bootleg at the moment called "Bitch" and they really have fun with the word:

"Baby we can get freaky,
we can get buck wild,
I can do you nasty,
even doggy style,
you can have some fun with me,
I can scratch that itch,
I don't want to wife you,
but could you be my bitch"

At which point a woman's voice cuts in with the hook: "B-i-i-i-tch!", with a mixture of full-finger up-yours insouciance and how-dare-you puffed-up outrage. One of the things I like about these lyrics is that they promise sexual gratification to the woman on her own terms. The man has to work. As well "Bitch", when used in the right way of course, is empowering to women. Plenty of women use the word to describe themselves don't they? It has a nicely self-aware deconstruction of the war-of-the-sexes embedded within it too.

If slang is going to work it has to perform a meta-dissection of language; cut to the shit and re-motorise vocabulary. It's nothing as crass as street-signifier really, when it reaches that level it's usually worn out and the smart people are looking for new words. Like "Showerface" in Grime, I'll bet that's all worn out by now. Which brings me to what must be my least favorite lyrics of all time:

"My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My lovely lady lumps (lumps)
My lovely lady lumps (lumps)
My lovely lady lumps (lumps)
In the back and in the front (lumps)"

I've done a little research on this and it seems people really do use the word "humps" and it's loathsome, but "lady lumps", jesus what a completely revolting phrase. I mean, "Booty" has a lovely full-some ring to it, "Booty" is about glorious in-your-face nudity, about hourglass buttocks busting the seams of tight jeans. It's akin to a Fugs-ian, counter-cultural call for hot, sweaty, *natural* sex. But "Humps" and (worse, I mean gravy has lumps...) "Lumps" are all about the body being uncomfortably fettered. OK, I can appreciate the "perv" angle, as much as the next red-blooded individual, but I just don't think it can be celebrated in the same way. Just like "Shorty" there is a gormless infantilism to the phrase "Lovely lady lumps" which really pisses me off as well. Grr.