Success Got 'Em Jealous: Merez and Emz Chat YEEZUS

Unable to decide on a book to finish reading, Merez and Emz can agree that ok, they smashed yr Corolla. 

I: “how do you ask your bitch for other bitches”

Meredith: Last night I was bumping Kate Bush on vinyl and I don't know if one of my roomies knows her

And The Dreaming might get kinda weird when you're not expecting it

Emily: I feel like that about Steely Dan: listening to it with other people can get weird.

I worked in a basement all summer and we would crank Yeezus... it was always pretty awkward when other people walked in.

What did you think when you first heard it?

Meredith: DARK

like industrial rap

Emily:  is that a new genre?

Meredith: I saw a stripped down room, filled with lots of metal

I thought that new genre was dub step. But that’s not this. This isn't abrasive like the dub. 

Emily: What's your favorite track?

Meredith:  Well "Bound 2" sounds the most like it doesn't belong on this album, because of the pop-ier samples. But the more I listen to it, the lazier Kanye gets. 
Emily: “how do you ask your bitch for other bitches”
Meredith: most of his rhymes on that song have "mad repet-ation" which stops being clever and starts to be like "here, you throw this out." 
Meredith: it's like at school when a kid says "i made this for you" and it's a drawing they clearly messed up on but they just don't want to put it in the recycling.

Meredith: I really like "Black Skinhead" but I don’t think I want to… "Blood on the Leaves" too. What’s yours?

Emily: "Guilt Trip" and "Send It Up"… I love the back end of the album—the tracks are so dense and fit perfectly together

but yeah "Black Skinhead" is kind of a perfect pop song

that video is ridiculous; its a video game

Meredith: did you see him on SNL?

Emily: its so heavy handed

"NOT FOR SALE"

The production is perfect. Also the performance is really strong. He's not phoning it in.

Meredith: (lol @ baffleck)

goosebumps.

You know how music videos of our youth would act out exactly the story of the lyrics?

I feel like this does that in an abstract way

It's obvious. But at the same time it's like "wait... is he? was that?"

Emily: How does he get away with saying "I’d rather be a prick than a swallower" on snl?

also at the end of that performance it’s really awkward to hear the crowd cheer

Meredith: The ending of that performance is the definition of a "pregnant pause"

"New Slaves" set me up for the rest of the album.

I saw these performances before I heard the full album, so I thought "damn. Kanye is in a dark place and wants to address racism"

Do you think he grew up during this album?

Emily: I think that he’s angry as hell, and I think that he should be, and I also think that "we" i.e. the dominant culture doesn't want to hear about the things he's angry about, for lots of reasons. Maybe “we” think racism doesn't exist because we have a black president or maybe we think Kanye “shouldn’t complain” because "he's a millionaire."

Meredith: Right— when we think we've come out of racist times and think we're absolved because of our president he comes back talking about all kinds of racism

like inserting race, literally, everywhere. ("put my fist in her like a civil rights sign")

Emily: um yes. “titties out, free at last”

I think he just wants to piss people off with those

Meredith: You can't talk about a Kanye album without talking about Kanye

do you think the album would have been so popular (among, mind you, some very white critics) if he were not at the Kanye level, if he were still an independent artist trying to make it?

Emily: No.

Meredith: pitchfork LOST IT over the album

right away

and then people were like "ehh. wait. actually"

or there was a lot of "I don't know what I think yet [because I’m white and is it okay for me to like it?]"

Emily: True. Pitchfork also gave Dark Fantasy a 10-- and that one song on there, "So Appalled" is so UNBELIEVABLY AWFUL I refuse to link it here. 

A lot of people praised the production which is obviously immaculate but I think it's overshadowed by the themes of the album. This is a great discussion. 

I came away from the album with the impression that Kanye's main preoccupations are race and sex, which aren't unwarranted

but those are both heavy topics and to tackle them exclusively without a break makes the album really dense 

Meredith: He gave us what we were asking for though

Emily: There's no little love song on here. 

Meredith: No. I feel like rap makes people uncomfortable because it references race, pussy and diamonds

so

no holding back

like almost self-referentially he knows that most references he's made on this album are INSANE

and only he can get away with talking about eating Asian pussy

Emily: Do you mean insanely offensive?

Meredith: Yes

Emily: I think it's for shock value but also because people love it

it's like a war movie

Meredith kinda jaw-dropping

his mode of "lots of explosions and stuff"

Emily: Maybe Yeezus is like the Platoon of race and sex

Meredith: oh man

Emily: But I think the casual misogyny is boring

mostly because misogyny is the most played card ever

I think in order to like the album, and I do, I've convinced myself he's just doing it for shock value

Meredith: It's funny comparing Ye's lyrics to those of Eminem

Emily: ugh, whose head I would love to see on a stick

Meredith: with Ye, I kind of laugh it off and am almost impressed...dude's got some good metaphors!

but Eminem spits supreme hate

Is it their tones of voice?

Emily: Possibly... Eminem seems like he's screaming at his dad

Kanye is only that mad when he's talking about race. i.e. in "New Slaves" 

Meredith: yes. that I could feel. Eminem is fast and has a good flow but I still hate him.

did you hear about the #yeezustour ?

my boss told me about it

he wrote this, too

This is where it's obvious that Kanye has an artists brain, even if it might be incredibly childish. There is vision: it's his piece of art and he's got control over it.

Emily: Did you watch the interview with Zane Lowe? 

I think sometimes we take for granted people's current role as artist, rapper, etc

but in reality a lot of really creative people have a really dynamic, varied artistic background. Freddie Mercury was the same way

I think Kanye is just an aesthete, and just decided he can do whatever he believes he’s capable of (or so he told Zane Lowe) and decided to be a rapper. 

II: Chasing the Hashtag

Meredith: so how do we explain his media presence when he's not rapping

i.e. the Jimmy Kimmel incident

Deep down, is he insecure and is being attacked? Does he take himself too seriously?

was he looking for a reason to shit on Jimmy?

Emily: I think the Kimmel episode especially was ridiculous because Kanye’s whole interview with Zane was him talking about how he's not taken seriously, etc, and then Kimmel has two children act out their dialogue. 

It seemed to be in poor taste. But obviously Kanye is sort of an easy target, and Kimmel possibly knew he'd be pissed and? drum up publicity for the show?

Meredith: meme vs. meme

Emily: I think that's a successful element of Kanye's art: being savvy about the way the internet works.

He knows that if he dresses as Jesus or calls himself a god people will blog about it/ hashtag him, increase his cultural cache etc ect etc

Meredith: absolutely. he's skilled at pushing norms or expectations

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was dark as well, but that was death dark. This is institutionalized/historical violence and hatred dark.

Emily: Yeah, twisted fantasy seemed to be the darkness of the self and this is the darkness of the society/ darkness of outside the self

Also, I like that Hairpin conversation linked above but I disagree with the critique of the album not "loving anything back"

Art doesn't have to "show love" to be legitimate or "good"

Meredith: for sure, otherwise it would be a false expression

Yeezus has such a different feel from his past works in that essence too. The amount of collaborations on MBDTF was nuts! And you felt he loved and respected them

because who can't love Justin Vernon?

Emily: True. Ye wanted center stage here. 

Meredith: This is so stripped down and insular. 

The case itself: no album art. Which, at first I thought it would be more reminiscent of a mixtape. 

Poorer production value up front, but this little bit of duct tape on the jewel case was kind of like the curtain in Oz, or maybe actually the opposite. 

He's not hiding anything or holding back, and we still/already think he's a god. 

But other people's art, outside of what is necessary for production and some collabs are distractions

though the tour seems like the exact opposite!

it's some theatric shit

with many BIG collaborations

that's Seattle!

lol@ tech nerds editing their live concert vids

III

Emily: This might be pulling a yarn on a very large sweater, but Yeezus' discussion of race: ? 

In the video of the Seattle show, it was sort of surreal to hear a crowd sing along to "My mama was born in an era when..." and in that sense, one could argue that he's altered/(advanced??, eh) the form of popular music. However. I still think that an act like Das Racist does a more thorough and clever job of rapping about racism. Kanye is shouting about it, and Heems and Kool AD are explaining, or illustrating it.

I'm not pretending that I'm qualified to discuss hip hop in depth at all, but I wondered why everyone was making so much noise about Kanye's addressing of racism like it had never been done before. 

It's a good song but even "New Slaves" sounds less like a case for the existence "new slavery" than stereotyping. I don't know if people thinking "black people like diamond watches and gold chains" is equivalent to actual slavery. And I'm not trying to be one of those abhorrent white people who claims racism is over and slavery didn't exist. I'm just curious about his terminology. 

Meredith: With the first verse of New Slaves, the young punk in me is all stretching the diamond watches and gold chains bit to all [young black people? black rappers?] being slaves to an image when he's talking about contracts/labels where there is a thin line between modern racism (wha?) and stereotyping. But he's not the first to rap about that! So what's the big deal? but also, in that first verse when he says "used to only be niggas," I thiiiiink but am not sure that that way he says "niggas" is like exactly how DMX said it. and look at DMX's crew vs. Ye's crew. And I am definitely qualified to talk about the Ruff Ryders. lol so hard at this: 

 

And go ahead and lol at this too: 

So what makes an angry Yeezus different from an angry X? Do a vast majority of his listeners "get it"? (like, is the Seattle crowd just singing along or are they aware of the anger or did they really want to go see Macklemore but it was sold out?)

Emily: "What They Really Want" is a better video than Bound 2. (I love how DMX admits to his frustration with "what women want" by shouting "somebody let me know." Also he is basically the Shakespeare of rhyming women's names. Can we also note how in the beginning he refers to women as "women"? Also, I'm glad no one has heard from Sisqo since MTV Spring Break 2001.)

"Party Up (Up In Here)" was the party jam of a thousand high school dances in 1999. It's nearly perfect. The video looks like it cost some actual money, which is what we expected at the time (and still do, Kanye). He was recently caught on film running through a hotel in Detroit naked, which makes me like him even more. Apparently it was a dare. He was right; he's a player for life. 

And I definitely don't think the vast majority of Kanye's listeners "get it" in the sense that they conducted even a brief reflection on race/racism before attending or during Kanye's performance; his show is pure spectacle and everyone’s along for the ride. Most of the audience probably also went to the Macklemore show, in the modern vein of "everyone likes everything now and no one likes anything anymore." 

Re: Bound 2 video: (which, ugh, not linking here)

Is Kanye broke and was forced into a budget of $40 for this video? 

What is a "kim kardashian"? 

Can you think of another instance in which the video has completely ruined the song for you? 

Meredith: SO RUINED BEYOND RUINED AND I FEEL NAUSEOUS AND WHAT EVEN ARE HER BOOBS? ugh. what. not funny, Kanye. Not funny at all.

Emily: her boobs look like she wouldn't be able to dive, really, or ever be too far under water? 

Is he being savvy or is he that deluded?

Meredith: That shit is going to keep us talking about kanye foreverandever

Emily: iiiiiiiiii knooooooooowwwwwwwwwww

and that's what he wants! And maybe that’s his art

Meredith: kind of like Miley

Emily: ugh fuck I don't want to be alive anymore

Meredith: I feel like we've reached the apex and what the fuck is going to happen next

Emily: I think people thought that happened with punk... this is the detritus we're wading through.

I think punk did end everything, in a good way. Now we're shoveling shit.

Not to be too cynical, but none of it matters. It exists just to serve itself.

Meredith: So, real talk,

do you "like" Yeezus

Emily: I definitely do. I forced untold multitudes of people to listen to it with me like once a day this summer. I think its innovative, and it surprised me.

Meredith: As Kanye’s audience at the show is watching him, as they're saying words, is there contemplation or is there just "damn, Ye, that mask is crazy."

Emily: Maybe the audience’s ability to sing along without contemplating the meaning behind “my mama was raised in an era when…” speaks more to the depth and totality of white privilege than anything else?

What are your end-of-the-day, confessional, head-on-pillow thoughts on Yeezus?

Meredith: I think he's positioned his public into loving the shit out of whatever he does. And he's done that through pushing boundaries and being incredibly innovative and constantly changing his sound on his albums.

If this were his first album to drop, it'd be weird. But we're wrapped around his diamond-ringed finger. 

And, fortunately, he's smart and snarky and weirdly, I’m hypocritical about his misogyny.

Like...I like it. Or I accept it and it actually makes me laugh and say "oh snap.” 

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

For this installment of Chattin The Classix, we tackled our first volume of science fiction, Philip K. Dick's (henceforth PKD) Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep (henceforth DADES), which inspred the 1982 film Blade Runner. PKD was known to experiment with hallucinagenics in pursuit of cracking open the nature of human existence, and inspired legions of followers known as "dickheads." DADES follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter charged with retiring androids as he nagivgates issues of empathy in the time of nuclear apocalypse. Don't worry, we manage to include Snoop Dogg, Freud and post-apocalyptic sexual politics in the discussion.

Meredith: what would happen if an android could get pregnant?!

Is robot a recessive or dominant gene?

Emily: well in DADES a human boning an android is against the law

Meredith: what if you didn't know!

"Officer, she said she was a human!"

 Emily: that would be an interesting sequel

 thru Rachael's eyes

so Sci Fi (Science Fiction in laymen’s terms): it’s a bit of an intimidating genre to get into

Meredith: I agree!

 I think it was wise to start with PKD

Emily: yes! He seems to be a giant of the genre but also sort of accessible to non-virgins

Meredith: the cover says that he's a prophet and kafka-esque

Emily: my cover has Harrison Ford on it

Meredith: oof

 I’d get into that

Emily: you've seen the movie, right?

Meredith: well so

 I think we should not call Blade Runner "the movie"

 it used DADES as a base

not an adaptation

there's no mention of Mercerism at all in the film

Meredith: but there is mention of Harrison ford kissing Rachael truly madly deeply

 Emily: ok so let’s talk about Mercerism

 Meredith: I mean obvi a commentary on religion in general

  Was it a scam? Was it only real if you believed in it? Did Deckard become Mercer?

Emily: right... I think he meant to show that all beliefs are available if you want them to be, but once you look behind the curtain, as it were, it’s all a ruse

  that’s what I got

  also

maybe I’ve been reading too much about Scientology, but it really reminded me of that

  like with the mood-meters or whatever

  just like in Scientology they have the e-meters to read your mood, sort of like confession

 Meredith: yes! also just saw The Master, which everyone called PTA's "scientology movie"

  also it was interesting: the sort of penance that people make to Mercer, where they feel his pain and connect to him

  Emily: right, exactly... they're supposed to empathize with his immense suffering

  Empathy: obviously an enormous theme of the book & the one thing that separates humans from androids

 Meredith: yesss

  identity, too

  it's interesting that some of the androids knew that they were androids

  and some didn't

Emily: right! Like Rachael?

 Meredith: Yes! Which is worse? To feel like you know what it's like to be a human even though you're missing a huge component? or to know you ain't

and then

 the scene with the other bounty hunter, Phil Resch

  I loved that part

 where Luba Luft called someone to have Deckard taken in

and his whole world, for a moment, got turned into this paranoia of the unknown

  how am I not myself

but then Phil Resch was very concerned that he actually was an android!

 They both were scared!

Emily:  or when Rachael says: "it's an illusion that I-- I personally-- really exist; I’m just representative of a type"

 which arguably could apply to us all

Aren’t we all just representative of a type?

I think the metaphysical aspects of PKD’s work is pretty undeniable

  but I love how it dovetails with the emotional element, the empathy

 Meredith: like what's it mean to be human?

 Emily: yeah. and Roy Baty the android says "the whole experience of empathy is a swindle"

   also

  the Buster Friendly element, the mass media, pro-consumerist talk show, is a rival to Mercerism, which the androids don’t have access to, because they can’t feel the pain of Mercer

Some background info: “SF critic Darko Suvin is credited with articulating the concept of the novum (“new thing”) in SF; the novum is the speculative element that is explored and which becomes one of the defining elements of the work, such as time travel, nanotechnology, faster-than-light travel, etc.” from :

  http://strangetelemetry.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/doandroidsdreamofelectricshee/

"novum" being elements of the plot in relation to SF

  Meredith: Let's talk about kipple

  it's just like left over crap but it's kind of taken over

  it's not garbage

but "useless stuff"

 "More than just clutter, Kipple is a spiritual and transcendent reflection of humanity's desire to collect commodities and then let them degrade and degenerate as they collect. Kipple is worthless, but it is also dangerous because it builds on itself and it encourages and causes everything around it to degrade as well."

That’s from some questionably accurate resource

  hah

 Emily: “I found that orienting my reading mind to another universe was difficult... not that PKD is extra-jargon heavy but still challenging for the newb

 Meredith: so is it just the human audience that really wants Rachael to fall in love with Deckard? even though we know it won't work

Emily:  yes! And is it just the human audience that was convinced that she was in love?

  I was convinced!

 Meredith: right. but it was impossible

Emily: totally, I don’t know why I thought it was, I was sold. I liked the scene where she meets him in a snakeskin jacket and bra and short shorts

  Meredith: poor thing is not affected by booze

  jk

there's also the scene where the other bounty hunter, Phil Resch, finds it very easy to kill andies

 and this makes Deckard question whether or not Resch is actually human

 he IS human, just doesn't give a fuuuuuuck

because the andies were a threat to their society

  it's almost a catch 22

  Retire the shit out of the androids, but if you don't feel a lil guilty, are you really human?

I guess you probably shouldn't sleep with them

 Emily: but, Deckard does have empathy!

 Meredith: right! such a human

me: ok also, so Rachael is basically sort of put in place specifically to sleep with the bounty hunters?

I didn’t pick that up when I was reading it,

 which maybe = cultural elapse IRL?

 we learn that she slept with this Phil Resch

in my mind, I’m like oh she liked both of them

 but in 1968

 a woman sleeping with more than one dude has to be a prostitute

 another review I read of it noted the archaic gender roles despite taking place in "the future"

 which I thought was interesting and a pretty valid critique of SF. technological advancement, nuclear holocaust and women are still subservient

Meredith: ah interesting

  it's funny because it still felt dated to me

  like the nagging mopey wife

 Emily: and the female secretaries

 Meredith: the hot chick that he cheats on his wife with

  the acceptance of him cheating

  woman as object, fo sho

 Pris, too

  her initial character, or how Isidore sees her, is damsel in distress

  little does he know that she wants to laser the shit out of his face

  but she needs Roy to help!

Emily: yes, true. plus, Rachael and Pris are just prototypes of each other

  the male androids aren’t all twins

Meredith: yes!

  I like how that's talked about in Blade Runner

  there are only a few models

  that one is the small kewt one

Emily: Right, plus you have Sean Young and Darryl Hannah

  to distinguish between

  lets talk about the literary quality of the work

  PKD constructed this world, but were you drawn in?

 Meredith: all 250 pages of it

 there were points that I was drawn into, but I definitely didn't get much imagery

  were you?

Emily: at times. I think the most affecting scene, or the one that really revealed PKD's talent as a writer and for creating tension was the one where the androids are hanging in Isidore's apt waiting for Deckard and they pull the legs off the spider, one by one.

  It’s pretty grisly, and lets us into the dark side of the androids

 Meredith: yesssss

 absolutely

 Emily: at that point, we don’t know who to root for-- we don’t really want to see them die but also we don’t sympathize with them

Meredith: I didn't feel much empathy for them

J.D. Isidore, yes.

 Emily: right! the "Special,” or a human who had been mentally destroyed by the nuclear fallout of the world war

a "chickenhead"

 BUT! we learn he has feelings, plus is still a moral being

 Meredith: yes!

 resents being called a chickenhead

the spider thing was really gruesome to read

  for lots of reasons

a, it was endangered

b. CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

c. worth $$$ that Isidore could use, being a chickenhead and all

Emily ok so the ending:?

Meredith: more subservient wife shit, kinda

  I mean, Rachael is clearly acting like an android

  what a bitchy thing to do!

Emily: right... I just thought it was a weird way for it to end... its Sci-Fi but has the most conventional movie ending EVAR

like, go to sleep and I’m going to order the fake frog some fake flies to eat so you can feel ok about things?

 Meredith: riiiiight.

 Emily: and we the readers are supposed to take solace in the fact that their marriage is back on track

 Meredith: there there husband

  exactly

  even though she has to dial in a 4 to feel happy around him

  or in general

that was interesting, even in 1968, it was almost like talking about Prozac (TM) nation

Emily: right, exactly!

  Sci-Fi always depicts the fears of its age

  maybe PKD predicted an emotionless future

  he was right

 Meredith: ooof

Emily: plus, nuclear holocaust which of course was a HUGE issue at the end of the 60s

and still is

 Meredith: OH that old thing

 Emily: plus, fear of extinction, the idea that the earth is unfit for its own inhabitants

 Meredith: there was palpable fear throughout about identity and extinction

 Mercer sez "It's the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. it is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe"

Emily: Ultimate Truths

  I think that the lesson of Mercer that he was a charlatan but also right about some things?

Meredith: right. so what was the deal with Buster outing him as a fraud?

Emily: I think he was trying to turn the masses against him

 Meredith: also, Freud! Robots! The Uncanny!

 “uncanny”  as the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar

 Emily: like close enough to be spooky?

  sort of like how humans find animals that look like us weird and unsettling?

 “Basically, the Uncanny is what unconsciously reminds us of our own Id, our forbidden and thus repressed impulses perceived as a threatening force by our super-ego ridden with oedipal guilt as it fears symbolic castration by punishment for deviating from societal norms”

  - from wiki page

“After Freud, Jacques Lacan, in his seminar 1962–1963 "L'angoisse" ("Anxiety"), utilized the Unheimlich "via regia" to enter into the territory of Angst. Lacan showed in a very clear manner how, the same image which seduces the subject trapping him in the narcissistic impasse, may suddenly, by a contingency, show that it is dependent on something, some hidden object, and so the subject may grasp at the same time that he is not autonomous (5 December 1962).”

  it always comes back to Lacan

Meredith: miss u, college

Also Uncanny:

Emily: DOGGS IN SUNGLASSES

Emily: Blade Runner has this totally epic dénouement involving Deckard and lead male andy who looks like Dolph Lundgren but isn’t

and it’s raining and it’s just the best climax evr in an action film

and then in DADES, Deckard kills the last 3 andys with basically no fanfare whatsoever.  I know it’s unfair to compare a novel and cinema

 Meredith: in the book he's all "might as well just get this over with"

 Emily: yes! and in Blade Runner it’s a total battle to the death. he just knocks them off in DADES

 Meredith: but Roy has EMOTION in Blade Runner

 because his hot andy girlfriend was just killed in front of him

 but in DADES, he doesn't have emotion

  IT'S UNCANNY

because he is incapable of feeling that empathy. but we think he does

 because we're projecting our own empathy

Emily: it’s like the book is a test asking US IF WE'RE HUMANS OR WE'RE ANDROIDS

 Meredith: I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE

 Emily: EXACTLY

  the book is forcing us to question ourselves!

  DO WE HAVE EMPATHY?

  R WE HUMANS OR R WE ORGANICLY BASED HUMANOID LIFE FORMS?

Meredith: at http://www.cinerama.com/ in belltown Seattle, they have the outfit worn by J.R. Sebastian (the character based on Isidore from DADES)

it looks Joker-y

 and dusty

 like he's got kipple in his pockets

Emily: is it fair to compare a novel to the power of cinema?

Meredith: NO, DUH

 I felt more of a class commentary in DADES

Deckard is doing this important work saving the human race and is still living a shit life because he doesn't have the money to afford a real sheep

 Emily: and of course the real animal is a status symbol  

Meredith: which

  oh man

  back to sexist norms again but Iran, his wife, keeps him thinking that they scored this sweet, real frog in the nuclear wasteland of Oregon, and they pretend it's real

she doesn't want him to feel emasculated by a robotic frog

  because he's a man

  and should be earning moneys

Emily: fake frog--> class --> p33n size

  fake frog = castration as Freud would say

Kind of feel like Freud was so obsessed with castration that I wonder if he actually didn’t have a penis?

 Meredith: probably very very small

or maybe his mom cut it off while his father watched? In which case, everything he thinks is totally warranted. Otherwise, stfu?

 Emily: YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST, FOLKS:

FREUD, STFU

 Meredith: keep your psychoanalysis off my body

 Emily: I love seeing that bumper sticker in earnest. Like, the laws version.

 I laugh but also pump my fist in solidarity

Meredith: I’ll wear it


Next time on Chattin The Classix: Sex! Betrayal! Russians! Tolstoy's about to get rocked.