Shoes
Nelly’s “Air Force Ones” is a classic. I remember riding around in the car in high school surfing radio stations in the attempt to always have “Air Force Ones” playing. It was ridiculous how long we could actually keep this up.
Since “My Adidas” was released by Run DMC in 1986, shoes have been a classic trope in hip hop, but nothing takes it to the extreme like “Air Force Ones”. And it’s the extremes that make “Air Force Ones” great. The complete necessity of something as trivial as a shoe. In multiples. “I said give me two pairs,/I need two pairs,/So I can get to stomping in my Air Force Ones.”
The song is just getting started when Murphy Lee comes in with a verse that’s only rhyme is the one word “man”.
Don’t get me wrong man, now Murphy Lee ain’t dumb man,
‘Cause if the shoe is on the shelf, you should have some man
You can not sit up and tell me that you have none man
You may not have three or four but you got one man.
I got into a long argument once in college when someone mentioned they hated 50 Cent because he rhymed lines with the same word. Murphy Lee’s verse is a solid example of why I rarely take offense to this. Just look at the endings “dumb man”, “some man”, “none man”, “one man”. Enough said.
Then Kyjuan comes in with a verse that mixes the shoes with the another hip-hop staple: the car. Another necessity that’s completely trivial.
O. K. ‘li, I treat my shoe like my ride,
Chrome on the fat laces and put wood on the inside
Spray candy on the swoosh with electric roof
Since I put a kit on the sole, now got a wider shoe
You see that low mid, skittle purple poof, I’m drivin them.
(Kyjuan, where you gettin’ them colors, are you dying them?)
…
Every time I hear this verse, I just picture it all literally. A tricked out high top complete with chrome, wood interior and candy paint. And I giggle. But they are both just accessories.
Finally, Nelly rounds it out with a verse about the white on whites. My favorites, though mine are scuffed.
Now don’t nothing get the hype on first site like white on whites
Them three quarters, them lows; they all tight
The only problem they only good for one night,
‘Cause once you scuff them you fucked up your whole night.
Look at that first line. The whole verse, like most of the song’s verses, is centered around a single rhyme. But here, it’s the first line that makes it all work. “Now don’t nothing get the hype on first site like white on whites”. It’s overloaded “hype”, “first site”, “like”, “white on whites”. A completely excessive line that matches the theme of the song.
I think I might need some new shoes.
