I’M BOYCOTTING POP CULTURE UNTIL MR. T IS PAID $500,000 IN ROYALTIES
I’m sitting up here watching Rocky III (the best in the series by far) and I’m Google searching to see if Mr. T won an Oscar for his performance as Clubber Lang. To my disappointment, he didn’t. This is easily the best performance by a male actor in the last 30 years outside of Denzel Washington in Training Day and that basehead in Menace II Society that O-Dog shot over the cheeseburger. Mr. T was mean and just outright disrespectful to everybody. Apollo Creed was washed up and Mr. T knew it, that’s why he shitted on him all throughout the movie. Apollo went and got croaked by that big ass Russian in the next movie anyway, fuck him. Even Rocky Balboa was a big girlie mouth coochie frito from Rocky III onward, and the endings of Rocky movies III-V were fixed to save Stallone’s career. Let’s be real, Rocky sat up there and watched Mr. T run pimp talk to Adrianne at a public press conference.
“Hey sweet thang, why don’t you come to my place tonight. I’ll show you a real man”.
Mr. T was 9 years ahead of Jungle Fever by throwing mack lines to The Italian Stallion’s wife in public, Wesley Snipes was mad late. This is when movie villains were truly villainous. Bottom line, Mr. T was the greatest on-screen entertainer of the 1980’s- he’s tied with Sho‘Nuff from The Last Dragon - without even considering the A-Team. This epiphany hit me after he beat the crap out of a fan for no apparent reason on his way to the ring to fight Rocky, so I went on a Mr. T rampage and hit up you tube. One of the first things I unearthed was something I had completely forgotten about. Mr. T was a true renaissance man, and he recorded an album and an EP in 1984. Only Michael Jackson had a better hold on the sound of the mid-80’s. I remember the joints “Mr. T, Mr. T (He Was Made For Love)” and “Treat Your Mother Right”. Speaking of the latter, here’s the video for it.
Please note how Mr. T was the only dude to ever do the Mohawk right (these barbers today are fuckin up the game), and how he was a visionary for racial harmony by having the Rainbow Ho-alition singing background vocals. Just check out how he breaks down the word MOTHER into an acronym. This song has aged pretty well considering what’s out now. I’m sick of hearing people “spit 16’s” and battle rap all day on these Smack DVD’s, all that shit is dreck. Mr. T had concepts, ideas and epiphanies. These fools are over here promoting their new mixtapes. Gethefuckouttahere. Mr. T was making albums, good ones. There hasn’t been a major label rap artist to debut since the year 2000 that comes remotely close to what Mr. T was doing musically. OK, he wore some tight, fashion faux pas clothes, but have you taken a look around lately? At least the dude was diesel, not 56 pounds and wearing skinny jeans like the fools in this video (this is easily the worst song I’ve ever heard in my life…Jeeezus, this shit makes “Chicken Noodle Soup“ and “Do The Stanky Leg” sound like “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos” and “Straight Outta Compton”). Ouch.
OK, Mr. T’s performance was a tad stiff, but he looks like LL Cool J in his prime compared to the performance (if you wanna call it that) of that horrendously God awful auto-tune song that this dude did on Saturday Night Live . No bullshittin’. Listen to the snare on "Treat Your Mother Right". It’s smackin way too hard…harder than all this snap clap shit out today. Plus, its good to see a rapper that is physically intimidating for once. Part of what made a rapper so awe-inspiring as a kid was the fact that he would scare the shit outta you. Rappers were like superheroes back then, and now they look like glam rockers that could share the sandbox with you. Mr. T had all the checkpoints of being a true rap artist and personality down pat. Not to mention, a lot of his rhymes were written by the one and only Ice-T, and he even had New Edition on his album. I managed to get a hold of both Mr. T projects, and they’re both better than EVERYTHING that has come out in the past two years (except Suga Free’s Smell My Finger album…that was genius). To top it all off, all these little brats running around here in Mohawks need to recognize who started it all, as do all the rappers and entertainers that choose to run that style. I’m boycotting pop culture in all shapes and forms until Mr. T is paid a sum of at least $500,000 royalties for his underrated contributions to what’s going on today. I suggest everybody reading this do the same. All these electro-retro-metro 80’s throwback artists that weren’t even alive at the time better start cutting checks. I’m telling you, if it wasn’t for Mr. T, none of these modern day rap/ pop/ fashion/ glam/ swag/ retro-metro/ auto-tuned out whatever the fuck would exist. And to top it off, they’re doing it all wrong. I’ll end this entry off with another Mr. T gem, “Be Somebody”. He was foreshadowing what would happen to the music industry in 2009 and he saw the rap squeegeemen selling Mix CDs in the barber shops, I’m sure. Mr. T, Salute!!
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:41 am
Word. T is a pure legend.
I don’t mean to brag but I got both the Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool VHS and a promo 12″ of Treat Your Momma Right, one of my most prized pieces of vinyl. Actually, I guess I am bragging.
P.S. If they do an A-Team movie remake, which is inevitable, they better cast Mr T. as B.A.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
How about the fact that Mr. T is so bad ass he even kicked brain cancer’s ass?
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
C’mon now. Rocky 4 is the best Rocky movie. 1 and 3 are amazing but 4 is on another level.
Just off the driving reflections/There’s No Easy Way Out montage scene after Drago has snuffed Apollo 4 is the best movie but when you add in the emotion of the epic Rocky vs. Drago fight (which is the best ever boxing match in a movie) you’ve got an unfuckwithable movie.
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:56 pm
True, that was an ill scene and the Russian was a bad mufucka, but Mr. T was just a beast in III. Plus, Mickey had just died and Rocky had to overcome that. They all had their moments (even with that Don King lookalike in Rocky V) but I still gotta roll with III. Second place would be a toss between 1 & 4, but moreso for the Russian only having 5 lines but one homicide in the movie.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
T is that dude. Plus he learned the game from the best, he was Michael Jackson’s bodyguard before he got on.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:41 am
If he dies…he dies
August 4th, 2009 at 5:29 am
the most bugged shit about rocky 4 was bridgette nielsen…and how 20 years later she’d be fuckin with flavor flav. that’s just a wrong combo. i wonder if flav saw rocky 4 and knew he’d be knockin that bitch down in the distant future?
August 4th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Even Nostradamus couldn’t have predicted that one.
5 more reasons why i ride with # 4 :
1. Apollo’s ott ring entrance to the strains of Living In America
2. War by Vince DiCola
3. The Gorbachev lookalike president
4. The training in Russia scene set to Hearts On Fire
5. Rocky possibly being responsible for the end of the cold war when he wins the people of Russia over due to his display in the ring
August 4th, 2009 at 10:33 am
another great fact about rocky 4. James Brown looks like a greezy retired pimp performing “Livin In America”. RIP James, he’s the best to ever do it.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
You know, I was working at an upscale food spot when Mr. T came in to eat.
Dude had a golden fork and knife that hung around his neck that he ate with.
No shit. This was in 96-97. King of bling!
Hey Zone, have you considered putting a page together with interviews and whatnot? Not to be acting like a superfan or nothing but some insight on what it was like to work with the underground legends you have worked with would be awesome.
$ick of being rich should have won a fucking grammy for comedy album. Just saying.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:42 am
What I wanna know is what Mr. T ordered from an upscale restaurant.
Thanks…I never thought about that. Im really not trying to put my own music on this blog, but maybe if I find a creative way to do it without being self-aggrandizing I’ll look into it.
August 12th, 2009 at 6:59 am
haha that snare is somethin else. and funny to see them tube socks and shorts on mr t. you know with the “skinny jean” craze, i hope to god they don’t start wearin lil shorts like that again.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Howdy Guru, I fell lucky that I located this post while browsing for smack dvd. I am with you on the topic of I’M BOYCOTTING POP CULTURE UNTIL MR. T IS PAID $500,000 IN ROYALTIES. Ironically, I was just putting a lot of thought into this last Sunday.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Rocky III is the only one wit a real diss wit the “real man” ish wit Adrian.
Drago is tuff but he didn’t disrespected like this.
September 6th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Excellent site, keep up the good work
September 6th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Ha! I didn’t know Mr.T recorded an album AND an EP. I’m going to go on the hunt for those purely for nostalgia sake. And the snare on “Treat Your Mother Right” was CRAZY hard! lol
October 1st, 2009 at 1:42 am
That snare is indeed killing it. I’mloving his perplexed facial expressions also