The Elusive High School Diploma
Through the use of musical talent you can live a life of fortune and prosperity. The Black Eyed peas hit single “Imma Be” topped charts all around the nation with its catchy nonsensical beat. The song is broken up into 3 different pieces and is then sang/ Rapped by the members of the group. The members of the group each describe how in the future they will be rich and famous due to their futuristic, new age, music being better than everyone else’s. The song makes a mockery of the English language by imploring popular slang terms and poor structured rhyme schemes to fit to the catchy techno beat. Ultimately the message of the song is that, what you learned in elementary school English is no longer necessary when you have become rich and famous. As well that once glorified by your mediocre music you will spend all of your time at parties and clubs living what you imagine the perfect life to be. Lastly once you have Become Popular and made large amounts of money due to your music, education and common since are a thing of the past.
The song begins immediately lowering the IQ of the listener. The first words out of the mouths of the performers (musicians was a stretch) are “imma be” a slang term used to mean “I am going to be.” At first it was believed they were saying “I am a bee” but many were sadly mistaken when the lyrics were later released. This is only a first in a litany of new vocabulary that the song introduces in an attempt to possibly create a hybrid English language. But sadly this cannot be done and instead just creates an atrocity of grammatical errors and nonsensical words. This song takes the English language and attempts to crush it into a pulp ignoring every simple grammar rule ever taught to you in your elementary school years.
With the use of a catch beat the song entraps young children brainwashing them unsuspectingly. Now often times the lyrics are difficult to understand so many people do not know what they are saying when they chant along to the hypnotic beat, but when looked at the lyrics are vulgar and incredibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. There is a moment in the song where Will.I.Am references himself become so famous that every woman will want to be impregnated by him, “Imma be ya banker loading out semen.” If parents had any idea the kind of vulgarity behind this song they would most likely never let their children listen to this garbage but the catchy beat gets them hooked. Not only are the words vulgar but the entire idea behind the song is idealizing a filthy way of living popular to Hollywood movie stars and prostitutes.
This song blatantly insults the intelligence of the listener. Not only do they believe that they have to use slang terms and low level English for the unwashed masses, they make blatantly wrong statements and poses the idea that you have the same unhealthy rich fantasy that they do. About half way through the song they say “Imma be in Rio rocking Tokyo” you can’t get much more wrong than that. Not only are these two completely different cities but they are on different continents across the world. Do they truly believe that that the listeners are dumb enough to think this is possible. Besides the completely wrong geographical information, and the use of improper English they go so far as to insult the listener’s intelligence another way. They believe that because of their rich and prosperous life style that “all these folks want to flock to us.” Why would we want to be around some of the most ill informed unintelligent people? It is truly just an insult on us the listener.
The Song “Imma Be” by the Black Eyed Peas has suck a catchy and hypnotic beat that you almost miss what the lyrics are really saying. The first time I heard “Imma Be” is a day I will never forget, it was on the radio in my car on the way to a track meet. By the 3rd stanza I was singing along too as the simplistic lyrics made it quite easy to catch on to. By 3 minutes into the song when I noticed that the lyrics had not varied by blood began to boil, and as I ran my 3200 on the track that meet the catchy beat and butchered lyrics stuck in my head the whole time. This may be the source of my strife but does not change the fact that this song is moronic, unintelligible, and insulting to all who listen.