sensitive thugs need hugs, but don't we all?

Ayo! Last I heard from Yee, he was mobbin w/ Yid on "Keep It On Me." Yeah they sounded like a Sino-Borscht Belt vaudeville act, but the way they brought that spirit-of-'01 Orientalist approach to Bay street-rap had this blogga C-walkin in his honeycomb AIs.

Yee is back with a sensitive gangsta ballad that's somewhere between YFN Lucci (a/k/a New Akon) and Yhung TO. For all the ink spilled about the nihilism of gangsta rap, the Pacs and 'Faces of da world balanced it with serious moral engagement. Actually, dumb man, it was the most moral music being made in the '90s, especially when you consider all the indie rock bands writing songs about nothing. What damaged the youth more: irony or deeeeeez nuuuuts? Clearly the Soundcloud and mumble-rap gang is following in the footsteps of the morally vacuous likes of Stephen Malkmus, 'cause they ain't rapping about nothing. It's just bitch this and Molly that, repeated to the point that they lose their meaning. Based God, Based God, what have ye done?

Soon we'll have a whole generation gettin head in the whip and poppin Xans but feeling nothing. That's fine wit me 'cause I don't believe in anything either, but I'm glad we have moral sages like Lil Yee and other street-rap believers keepin the moral focus in the age of entropy. Listening to street-rap is a moral imperative.

YID AND YEE: NOT A JEWISH-CHINESE COMEDY DUO!

Earlier in 2016, Denzel Curry went on record as a gook. A rapper from the Bay is now calling himself Yid. And while he may be Black Hebrew Israelite or a member of the Stoudemire sect, he has yet to cover Judaic matters in his work. Until further notice, I have to assume that Yid is not a yid.

Before we charge this young man with the crime of cultural appropriation, let's go beyond the moniker. "Keep It On Me" revisits the early '00s trend of vaguely Asiatic production, commonly associated with visionary jocks of the guzheng like Timbaland and Ja Rule. What might have been dismissed as cultural appropriation in another context was celebrated for expanding the possibilities of rap music. And it did. Culture runs on appropriation; people only care when the appropriation is executed poorly. In this case, "Keep It On Me" is so catchy it would have even the students of Oberlin dabbing muskily around the compost heap.

We talkin yins 'n' yangs in this transcultural mash-up: Yee with the lilting rap-sanging, Yid sounding like he's rapping through a bullhorn into a cheap computer microphone. As Richard Gere once said, Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. You can't have the sweet without the sour, the Yid without the Yee. It's a combination so winning I only wish they'd gone full yellowface like Jin in the "Learn Chinese" video instead of blowing their budget on a pricey Lil Blood cameo. Somewhere in the ether, Bruce Lee is sippin Heem and nodding in approval.