FROM MTV MOVIES: It's one of the biggest — and most inexplicable — hits of 2011, a song so popular that its hook was name-checked during player introductions on Sunday Night Football, so massive that Jay-Z and Kanye West have taken to performing it multiple times per set on their Watch the Throne Tour.
We're talking, of course, about "N---as in Paris," the max-impact Throne single that has become a sensation, thanks in no small part to producer Hit-Boy's bouncing beat, West's pop-cult wordplay ("What's that jacket, Margiela?") and, of course, a pair of oddball samples taken from Will Ferrell's 2007 figure-skating comedy "Blades of Glory."
As you're probably aware, "Paris" kicks off with Ferrell's grizzled Chazz Michael Michaels defiantly declaring, "We're gonna skate to one song and one song only," then really picks up steam mid-song, when (in a move that could alternately be described as "completely inspired" or "completely insane"), Hit-Boy drops the beat and lets the song roll on a second Ferrell sample: "No one knows what it means, but it's provocative ... it gets the people going!"
James Franco: Musician? His Debut Record Turns It Up Next Month!
Posted 6/8/11 1:11 pm EST by James Montgomery in Commentary, Humor, News
Well, sort of. Because while Franco has joined forces with "video/performance artist" Kalup Linzy to create the aptly-named duo Kalup & Franco (they'll release their debut EP, Turn It Up on July 12, through DJ /rupture's Dutty Artz label), based on what we've seen so far — namely, a live performance of "Proud Mary" — Franco doesn't actually seem to be doing much in the way of actual musicianship. Instead, he just sort of stands there in a tuxedo, looking handsome, while someone else vamps and camps (which, if you think about it, is basically all he did when he hosted the Oscars, too.)
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