About a (home)boy

Precious few things are more laugh-inducing than the shameless borrowing (read: outright thieving and apery) of cultures by people, and this is for several reasons. First, it doesn't fool anybody except the very young or the very senile. In that way, it is sort of like Asian Bullet Bikes. Nobody is impressed by them except junior-high school girls, and those in your own age group with necessarily consider you to be a strutting buffoon. Caveat emptor.

But we've all met people like this, yeah? Someone goes to Spain on semester abroad and comes back with a horriblely fake Spanish accent. The most famously mocked case would be Madonna, and her faux-posh Brit speech patterns after marrying Guy Ritchie.

Look, I'm all for the global mashup of cultures in this era of globalization, but I didn't start to act like an Italian mafioso after spending some time in Rome, nor did I pretend to be a Russian mobster after living with a suspicously wealthy guy from Siberia last term. But I have to admit that there is one group of people that I have a terribly difficult time taking seriously: British rappers.

I've heard a smattering of Brit-hop (yes, I just made that up) while living in London, the different varieties of which go variously by the name "grime" or "garage". What I've heard has been fairly middling, although some stuff has been decent. The few I've seen mentioned most prominently have been Dizzee Rascal, Eskiboy, and Mike Skinner. By the way, love that sweater Mike. I suppose I should mention that Mike Skinner should be excluded from this list, because he is one of the few British rappers I've seen who isn't shamelessly stealing from the American rap scene. Kudos to you.

But the point of all this is that for some reason, I simply cannot reconcile the jarring juxtaposition of American urban style with the British accent. I simply cannot get past the Mr. Belvedere speech patterns. So here's my advice guys, do one of two things:

1) Get an accent coach to get rid of that pesky clipped British accent.
2) Be like Mike. Have your own style, one that doesn't scream Memphis or Atlanta by way of Essex or Kent.

Just some friendly tips, gents. Because this may be the image you are going for:

This is what you look like to people: