Throwback Friday: Sporty Thievz - No Pigeons (1999)

My fault, y'all. I got caught slippin' yesterday, so Throwback Thursday is coming a day late this week. No worries; the consistency will come back soon enough.

This song was so refreshing for many men like myself when it came out (or, boys like myself, since I was like 12). This song was a direct rebuttal to TLC's "No Scrubs", which was basically a gold digger anthem about how men without money were good for nothing. There were a number of R&B songs during the late 90's that were about no-good men (i.e. "Bills, Bills, Bills", "Independent Women", "Bug A Boo", "He Wasn't Man Enough", etc.). It was nice to finally have males come up with a response. I was surprised, though, that they were able to get away with putting out a single using the exact same beat as the TLC record. The punchlines in this song especially hit the spot, specifically gems such as "Ya flat ass gets enough laughs/ Take it to the salon, pluck your mustache." You couldn't help but laugh when you heard this song, especially if you were a male.

According to the Sporty Thievz's wikipedia page: "They are notable for their minor debut hit "Cheapskate (You Ain't Gettin' Nada From Us)" and perhaps more so for satirically providing a male counterpoint to the female-oriented, anti-male R&B music popularized in the late 1990s and early 2000s, something that was not done by ANY other group at the time. This makes them the FIRST Hip-Hop group to champion the cause for equality (and against double standards) between men and women."

As a somewhat unrelated note, that part at 2:11 mark where ol' buddy is standing there with all those birds on him reminded me of the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2. I guess I'm just weird like that.