Siddity In The City

The Corrections, Pt. II: Shawnna is not fictional.

See? I warned you there would be more. So, in an earlier post on EA videogame release Def Jam: Fight For New York, I mentioned some of the female characters showcased in the game--celebrities Kimora Lee Simmons, Li'l Kim, Carmen Electra--and two fictional characters, Shaniqua and Shawnna. As it turns out, I was wrong. Shawnna is real. I only wish she wasn't. Shawnna is a Chitown rapper signed to Def Jam. I didn't know, never heard of her. (Apparently, neither has anyone else, considering nobody caught that in the last post.) And while in the realm of celebrity being unheard of might be as good as not being real, in the loosely journalistic world of blogdom, I do try to stick to facts. So, from her Def Jam artist website, a little somethin' about Shawnna:

Her solo debut Worth tha Weight promises to bring more depth than just the average rhymes of Burberry, Prada and sleeping around. "I want my music to be an outlet for women who have children; who feel like they cannot reach their goals and reach their dreams," Shawnna promises. "I want people to understand and feel what I am saying."

(And here I would like you all to note the lack of ellipses. I did not edit a thing out of this to change the context of the following line. It is exactly as it appears on the website.)

And rap fans will with tracks like her first single "Shake Dat Sh*t" produced by Timbaland Featuring Ludacris.

Because shakin' dat shit is deep, and the goal of struggling mothers everywhere is really just to "Shake Dat Sh*t." Yeah, that would speak to me if I were a single mom. Not. Not unless "dat shit" refers to a fool dodging child support payments. I don't even know if I want to get into what else is wrong with that excerpt. Who edited that? Did no one say, "Hmmm, perhaps we shouldn't use the 'I want to reach struggling moms' quote to highlight the depth of 'Shake Dat Sh*t'"? And will someone please, please, please tell me why they felt the need to misspell the word the, because I don't understand. "It's three letters long, so we can't truncate it...let's just spell it all assed up." I mean, WTF? And don't get me started on 'weight.' Is she a prizefighter? Oh Lord, help us in this, our time of darkness.

posted by Sid @ 10/16/2004 04:01:00 AM