We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
If, like me, you don’t remember the last decade, our Go-Go Bites feature was occasionally running down a history of national/mainstream songs taking cues, sounds, and ideas from go-go music. And I’m bringing it back for the ’10s.
Today the biter is Jesse Jaymes, the Asher Roth of his generation*. His 1992 single “Shake It Like A White Girl” shared a title and concept with a E.U. record. Alright, OK. Shaking it like a white girl isn’t the most original idea, maybe this was just a case of parallel thought. But no, his second record “$55 Motel” borrows the hook, line, and concept from one-hit go-go rapper Vinnie D.
(It was actually a $56 dollar motel, according to Sidney Thomas’ excellent Diamonds In The Raw book, but they rounded off.)
If this all seems a little irrelevant, it’s because it is. But strangely, Jaymes’ version of “Motel” has recently found an unexpected second life on YouTube’s AudioSwap service, which offers legally acceptable replacement music for YouTube videos that have had their audio silenced by legal claims. So there are now dozens of incongruous YouTube clips set to Jaymes’ chants of Vinnie’s hand me down refrain. Like the one above.
(But but but but, in the words of Sticky Fingaz, wait it gets worse—-Jaymes’ only album, Thirty Footer In Your Face, seems to boast another apparent jack, with a track entitled “Sho Nuff Bumpin’,” which is also the name of another EU classic. I thankfully don’t own a copy of the Jaymes album to compare notes.)