It's so easy to misconstrue the Pimpadelic manifesto, to think it's just one more drop in the shitbucket that has become rap and roll. That's how brilliant, how subversive their methods have become -- in order to corrupt, one most adapt and adopt. To listen to Southern Devils is to be confronted with the most grim and horrible truths offered up by a iniquitous, diseased culture -- and then to laugh and wince as they roll by one after the other, like gangstas on the prowl.
"Bitches come around, get a dick in your ass" -- surely, it's a metaphor for the castrated American male, who has been victimized by a society that promises equality for all but offers justice for none, especially the white American male, the most castigated being in all of modern society. It's revenge fantasy as shocking, blunt fiction -- the "truth" offered up as a lie. Couple that with lines such as "I ain't got time for bitches / But I like the money and I'm a pimp addicted to dropping my britches" and "Contradictory to the rumor that my head's so big / I work hard to gank my money, call me Easy the Kid," and you've got the deepthink polemic offered up in ready-made rhymes -- to-the-bone rage masquerading as yo-s'up-G bushwa boo-sheet. Theirs are the politics of the pocket book: Yo, a brutha, regardless of color, just wants to get paid.
But it's the universal truth they seek: Break it down, and theirs are nothing but the laments of the alienated Everyman with the broken heart turned hard with sadness, regret, loneliness. "Drop pills, bald pussy all in my grill," begins "So Damned Tough," one of so many ironically titled cris de coeur. "Stay still, won't you shit on my dick then nasty get up / In nothin' but my Speedo, you won't see a fancy getup / Say I love you -- at the same time put a bottle up your butt / Feed you Ex-Lax, relax, come on baby fill it up." Fellas, sorry for all the misunderstanding. Who knew all Pimpadelic really wanted was a hug?
