I guess I should make you fans/readers aware that there is now a music video for my song "Cooley's Rap". One time some friends of mine put on one of my CDs at a get-together with friends on their home stereo. I'm always embarrassed when this happens, and I want to hide.
That feeling is even worse when a song I'm not particularly proud of is playing. At this time, one of my friend's young daughters was there, and she made it known that this song was her favorite. I chalked it up to it being most similar to the type of music she was familiar with, the type of music popular amongst her peers.
I've had several people tell me over the years that they found it to be entertaining, though they didn't elaborate on why. Overall, people who have heard my music are baffled by my preference to play all acoustic instruments and to play the minimalist drums and percussion myself, some going so far as to suggest that I instead play electric guitar and use synthesized drums. For those craving a more conventional, polished, mainstream and slick production sound, this may have temporarily satisfied such a craving somewhat.
In a sea of acoustic-guitar dominated garage rock love songs, this one stood out. I released it on an album I titled Drive Time Companion back in 2008. It was my first and only attempt at a rap song. Although I do in fact "diss" in the song, I mean no disrespect to anyone, and like many a white rapper, felt compelled to try a rap song out of appreciation for the associated black culture.
Sometimes it is important to reconsider the way you are speaking or acting before you end up causing real trouble. I never should've released this song in the first place, let alone revisit it and create a video for it. Other times in the process of checking yourself before you wreck yourself, you go against your own good judgement again, citing humor over potentially offending people.
As one does, I incorporated sampled beats and bass line, turntablistic scratching via guitar pick scraping along the low E string (bronze-wound) of an acoustic guitar, backing/emphasizing raps courtesy of my lovely wife Lenore, and wrote lyrics and rhymes I thought might be appropriate that included "street vernacular" I was aware of at the time, with subject matter that I thought should include references to violence, and perhaps most importantly, trash talking/dissing. When contemplating a video, I imagined it would need to be lip-synched to the original track, and further, that I should sport the most appropriate clothing I had available, which ended up including a hoodie, Adidas tennis warm-up jacket, and a rope chain-style necklace. For unknown reasons, I also thought it would be cool to wear ski goggles.
So, here you go: https://youtu.be/kHiYyJvMMVk
It's hard to say that it's creative or artistic in any way. It is completely nonsensical, does not tell any sort of interesting story, nor does it contain messages of any power or significance. As a standalone, drastic departure from the rest of my catalog of released original music, I am at once proud and ashamed of this song.
I learned it's really difficult to lip-sync(h?), and even more challenging to know what to do with your arms and hands. Looking cool should always be crucial to a successful rap video, and this does not even come close in any way, unfortunately.
In the unlikely event that you'd like to know even more information about this song, you're in luck because it is available here: https://www.scottcooley.com/albums/drive-time-companion/cooleys-rap
Looking back on it to create this terrible video, I realized the humor in it, and decided to embrace the misstep and own the embarrassment. I admit it's a really bad song, arguably made worse by having accompanying video content.
Overall, I hope people will enjoy revisiting this song and have the reaction my wife had to both the song and the video, which was to uncontrollably laugh out loud and proclaim it was awesome and hilarious.
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