Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot": Venn diagrams, anyone?

An academic approach to "the number one song in America", Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot".

The article, by Rob Harvilla in The Village Voice, starts out with simple Venn diagrams to explain the states of being "hot" and "fly". This is funny enough, but then it goes on to acknowledge that these may be "visually unhelpful" and offers us several more diagrams to explain a fairly-straight forward song.

I think my favorite is Figure 4, titled "Are you hot?".

All this is very amusing, as was no doubt intended, but the article really hits its stride when it addresses my pet peeve: calling San Francisco "Friso". That's only slightly worse than calling Northern California "NorCal".

My comments are inserted into the paragraph in square brakcets:

"Our quarrel lies with 'If you need it hyphy/I take it to the Bay,' an homage to the Oakland–San Francisco Bay Area's relentlessly knuckleheaded and sorta wonderful hyphy movement, with its proclivities for going dumb, making thizz faces, ghost-riding the whip, etc. (Yahdidabooboo.) [I have no idea what this means.] But unlike Mims's other geographical shout-outs, that's all he says here—'I take it to the Bay/'Frisco to Sac-town/They do it e'y'day.' [This is the part I love:] First of all, no one calls it 'Frisco' except rhyme-starved rappers, and the only worthwhile MCs living anywhere near Sacramento are in prison. But even worse, there's no style adjustment here—he just takes it to the Bay. This is wholly insufficient for hotness—several entities that take it to the Bay do not qualify…"

Another, more complex diagram follows. This is the climactic diagram to the whole thing.

And I thought I overanalyzed music.

More about Mims at All Music Guide.

Via Distracted