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Ready to File

23:16 / 19.08.04

It’s no good. I can’t struggle with the burden of this myself any longer. Imagine an alternative reality in which the entirety of hip hop took place on an industrial estate in Luton. Biggie Smalls was born in North London and now works as a beleaguered office assistant with aspirations. He has an ongoing rivalry with Tupac, the office manager from upstairs. They compete for the regional manager’s affections. Lil Kim is the secretary that everybody fancies. Snoop is the lecherous janitor who’s always getting done for touching up all the girls in the office. Puffy is in charge of marketing. Jay Z is the finance guy. Missy Eliot is the feisty lady boss. It’s horrific, but I’ve been channelling this terrible parallel world for the last week or so. Please help me exorcise these demons and move on or I will go insane. It’s got to the point where my brain is automatically rewriting hip hop lyrics in terms of this terrible alternate reality and I can’t stop it.

From Biggie’s album in progress ‘Ready to File’:

“Call your manager, bitch
I’ll take his pens too,
Tell him Biggie took ‘em
What the fuck you gonna do?”

“If I wasn’t in the sales game,
Then I’d probably have a foot knee deep in the retail game,
Checking every word that I spell,
For the stupid motherfuckers wanna try and use Excel”

“Damn! Admin wanna stick me for my stapler!”

“I love it when they call me Big Poppa!
I only file forms that you fold proper!”

You see my dilemma. This is ruining hip hop for me. It’s all wrong. Very very wrong. Please help me find a solution.

23:16 / 19.08.04

“One, two, three
Mos Def and Talib Kwali
Here’s the number to ring
Best alliance in catering!
Yyah-ooohhh!”

Make it stop! Please make it stop!

23:27 / 19.08.04

“Call your manager, bitch
I’ll take his pens too,
Tell him Biggie took ‘em
What the fuck you gonna do?”

HA! That's insane! Really funny scenario, if frightening at the same time. Imagine that they all get sick of their jobs and get on a plane back to America or something, then when your brain tries making up more lyrics just tell it "It's over, get over it!"

Or make a less frightening/strange one up for it to make lyrics for.

Hip-hope you work it out.

10:55 / 20.08.04

Now tehy heard you blowing up like nitro
The auditors gonna go through ya accounts slow

It's fucking horrible. It's like a virus. I keep hearing my favourite lyrics filtered back to me via a small business school above a menswear shop on Luton High Street.

Betcha Big Poppa won't slip...
All my expenses are inventoried on the chit!

11:09 / 20.08.04

And if my line manager even tries to bogart, I'll have human resources singing it's so hard... (to find a new temp at short notice who's reliable and punctual...)

11:18 / 20.08.04

Imagine if this meme escaped into the wider world; the actual artists concerned might get infected. The next thing you know the entirety of hip hop culture is based on this idea and raps about stationery roam the earth destroying all who stand in their way.

11:27 / 20.08.04

"Once they caught us off guard, the i-Mac was on the desk and
I ran a system check with thoughts of an assassin
Pick the i-Mac up, told brothers, "Back up," the i-Mac spit
Virus was hittin programs, one ran, I made it force quit

Restart the system like the words of my breath
I never reboot, cause reboot is the cousin of death
I lay puzzle as I backup disks from earlier times
Nothing's equivalent, to the IT state of mind"

Gah!

Hattie's Kitchen

12:20 / 20.08.04

"Word" by 50 Cent

Here come the B to the O, double S
Check my laminating, bitch, it's the finest
I'll punch yo holes like you never seen
Get your ass grinding for me in the canteen

Word, motherfucker, spellcheckin' my shit,
If you ain't proactive, then you ain't legit
Word!

12:09 / 21.08.04

If you’re having maths problems I feel bad for you son,
I got 99 problems,
Adding the chit ain’t one.

Quit out of barbelith back to the screen I lost,
In the rear view mirror, it’s the mother-fucking boss,
He said: ‘Son, do you know I’m stopping you for?’
Cos I’m young, I’m a temp and my screen’s real old?
Do I look like a line manager, Sir? I don’t know?
‘You’ve had 55 sick days out of 54,
We’ve got a meeting room booked on the second floor,
Are you keeping a timetable?
I know a lot of you are’
I ain’t had two written warnings with office stamps on the back,
I know my rights, so you better speak to the agency ‘bout that,
‘Are you some type of consultant or something?
Somebody important or something?’
Well I ain’t been on a course, but I know a little bit,
Enough that you won’t illegally recalculate my chit…