Young Jeezy is one of those rappers that’s so bad at what he does — he’s sometimes kind of good! Similar to other hiphop artists who also fit this paradox, like Lil’ Wayne, The Game and 50 Cent, Young Jeezy pumps out slick sounding beats with catchy (and often stolen) hooks, which he then raps over with the level of lyrical sophistication you’d expect from a stoned 5-year old.

My president’s black, my lambo’s blue, and I’ll be god damned if my rims ain’t too.

Despite sounding juvenile, silly, and often superficial to the extreme, sometimes this style of music simply… works. Perhaps it’s like how an accidental channel flick can swindle you into watching a half-hour of Billy Mays (edit: RIP) acerbically hawk Kaboom and Oxiclean products. The delivery of the message is entertaining, but the message itself is nothing more than a blitz of lyrical baby food for the pre-cognitive mind. Young Jeezy raps entire albums about his cars, clothes and money. His message is effortlessly consumed because it’s vacuous in nature, and yet, it is this ease of consumption that makes his music appetizing for his audience.

As my high school music teacher would carefully say, “sometimes hiphop can be clever.” This was his way of lightly praising the genre so as not to disturb the volatile emotions of his teenaged students (me included). Of course, him, like most non-fans of rap music, have long associated the art form with the less erudite. But really, one can only go so far when criticizing musical taste. So the question, I think, is whether or not rap music should be taken seriously. For instance, Harry Potter is a billion dollar franchise, but no one disputes that it’s purely fiction. Does rap music serve a similar role for a slightly different crowd?

Also, what about these hiphop artists who are clearly deficient in their verbal fluency: are they self-deluded by their fame and wealth and actually believe that they’re a modern day Shakespeare? Or are they fully aware of their dumbed down, boiled to a pulp styled lyrics and realize that their success is wholly dependent on their fashion, beats and chintzy music videos? The jury’s out on that one…