Culture Watch

The (lonely?) high-note at this year's Oscars was brazen hip hop in high def -- It's hard out here for a pimp -- taking home the best song award!!

We thought the song was preposterously pretty -- well deserving of its honor.

Washington Post's Philip Kennicott agrees:

A pimp complaining that "It's hard out here" has, in a single outrageous leap, passed by the issue of whether he has any right to grievance, and is demanding -- so shamelessly that it's funny -- all the perks and merits of someone who legitimately feels wronged.

Melody and femininity are intricately allied, and the union of melody to another element, words in a song, or rhythm and harmony in a symphony, has suggested sexual union throughout music history. For an attractive woman to sing "It's hard out here for a pimp" suggests that the pimp has found sympathy, against the odds, in the form of a woman who will articulate his complaints for him.

But are we meant to take this complaint seriously? The line sounds so clean, so pure in relation to the thickets of hip-hop rhythms underneath it, that it has the stylized sense of being purely ornamental, almost baroque in its detachment from everything else around it. Like a swirl of sumptuous fabric draping from an unnecessary angel in a painting by Tiepolo, it's funny by virtue of its excessive prettiness.

Now, this is real cultural revolution. Chairman Mao, eat your heart out!!