Every few years an artist comes around that makes me question why I enjoy and defend hip-hop. That’s how I feel about Ron Browz at the moment.
His obvious attempts to capitalize on an already saturated autotune market (T-Pain, Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West) are as laughable as his attempts at singing. The saddest part is that before he decided to become T-Pain-lite, he produced classics like Nas’ “Ether” and Big L’s “Ebonics.”
The first time I heard Browz’s new material was on Busta Rhymes’ now-banned “Arab Money”:
Where do I begin? Besides the obvious (the song is racist), when did it become OK to sing jibberish and pass it off as a foreign language? Since when has it been OK to pronounce it “Ay-Rab” (the video version corrected this), and why has Busta Rhymes stooped this low? I don’t think the song should be banned, but I don’t understand how it hit Top-40 radio without anybody raising an eyebrow.
And a note to Busta: Maui is not in the Middle East. Not even close.
Since the song’s disappearance from the airwaves, it has been replaced by another Browz-assisted track, Jim Jones’ “Pop Champagne”:
The song isn’t politically incorrect, but it is offensive to the ears. The droopy , soft drums don’t help to mask Browz’s ear-piercing vocals.
Luckily for us, he is a passing fad, and nobody will remember his name in five years.
Adrian Ruhi 