Song #919: "Laffy Taffy" by D4L

Date: Jan 14, 2006
Weeks: 1

This song has a pleasant enough sound to it. I really like the super-synthesizer that plugs away through the song. Beep beep boop! It sounds like a video game music remix, and I thoroughly enjoy those. The rapping is decent enough, and the chorus is like a chant, so they neatly sidestep the question of how well rappers can sing.

I like the overall sound, for about a minute. But it goes on too long with too little variety, and gets old really fast. Okay, beep beep boop, we get it. Add some variety. Build to something musically. But that doesn't happen.

Anyway, it's a rap song, so the music is besides the point and the lyrics are what matters, right? The chorus is "Girl shake that laffy taffy." Wait don't tell me, let me guess. "Laffy Taffy" means her butt, right? Oh. Oh no. It's something... else. Similar region, but... Sigh. They just had to be as crude as possible, didn't they? (Here's a link to it on Urban Dictionary, if you haven't figured it out and really want to know).

And then the rest of the song isn't any less crude. The first verse is filled with this kind of candy-as-sex metaphor. "Girls call me Jolly Rancher 'cause I stay so hard." It's sort of clever. It's like a dirtier version of "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies (#219). And I think that reference is intentional, considering the occasional interjections of "candy girl," a specific lyric in "Sugar, Sugar."

Unfortunately, this concept disappears in subsequent verses. I guess one guy in this group was interested in the candy-as-sex metaphor idea, but the rappers on the other two verses wanted no part of it. They both just rap about being at a strip club, and each of them raps about how he's just so special that he plans to win over the best-looking stripper and take her back to his place. Psst, guys, every stripper tries to make every guy feel like he is the only guy in the room and she's about to go home with him. A stripper who makes customers feel that way gets better pay and better tips. You're falling for the strip club's trick, and you're about one minute away from being escorted out by security, despite your assertion that "security guard don't scare nobody."

I suppose I don't even have to say that the song is totally sexist. Would it be so sexist if they left out the strip club stuff, leaving just the candy metaphor? And if "laffy taffy" didn't mean what it does? I guess it doesn't matter, because both those things are in this song.

My verdict: Don't like it. For about the first minute, I thought this song had potential to be good. But it wasn't.