Nu-metal is the best rock sub-genre to mash up with hip hop

I like discovering stuff. In March I told you that I was discovering (discovering) Ska rock. It was fun and exciting and I realised that rockers and reggae dudes have a lot in common (Ask Chizi of Last Year’s Tragedy).

So, since I am such an open-minded guy, I went back and sojourned the remaining dark archives of YouTube in search of any groundbreaking sub-genres of rock.

Instead, I came across this alleged collaboration between Weezer and Lil Wayne. Yes, Weezer and Weezy. The song is called Can’t Stop Partying. I was optimistic at first because Weezer has never disappointed. But this? This is a travesty.

So let us get to the chorus first. It goes “I can’t stop partying, partying. I can’t stop partying, partying I gotta have Patron, I gotta have the beat. I gotta have a lot of pretty girls around me.”

The travesty here is self-explanatory. This song’s chorus is the most lethal concoction of vanity and self-indulgence ever produced by a rock artiste.

Rockers are not known for these two “values”. Even when Nickelback wrote Rockstar, they put some sense into it by saying exactly why anyone would want the rockstar’s lifestyle.

CLEVER RHYMES

Furthermore, Weezer chose to collaborate with a person who threw his name into the dead sea of rock and roll bankability a long time ago. This man they call Weezy already banished himself from the rock charts by writing a ridiculously horrible rock album, which he sang entirely in auto-tune.

But I understand where the idea might have come from. Someone in the band might have struck a light bulb and said, “Man, a song by Weezer featuring Weezy will really get us some buzz.

It even rhymes…” But the truth is that it takes more than a few clever rhymes to make a rock hit. You need to be strategic.

Jay-Z was extremely strategic when he created the remix to Numb with Linkin Park. It was a song that truly deserved an encore. To begin with, Nu-metal is the best rock sub-genre to mash up with hip hop.

INGENUITY

The sub-genre originated from mixing hip hop beats with heavy metal guitar. And the possibility of success for a rapper collaborating with Linkin Park is pointedly obvious, given that they already have a rapper in the band who fills in rap verse to their songs.

Jay-Z did not even have to write an entirely new song to make it work. He just plastered his own song into Numb’s instrumentals, reorganised the hook and, voila! A new hit emerged; a hit that reach number 20 on the Billboard Top 100 the same year it was released.

Last year, R Kelly and indie rock band Phoenix collaborated on a song called Trying to Be Cool. That worked out well too. Just like Jay-Z’s, Linkin Park mash-up, this was also a remix to a previous Phoenix song.

R Kelly and Phoenix have a lot in common in their musical styles. R Kelly sings soul-influenced RnB and Phoenix plays indie pop with elements of soul. The remix was bound to be successful.

I am not saying that any band that wants to collaborate with a hip hop or RnB star has to try doing a remix to their song, but it helps to know who will complement the band’s songs and who may ruin them.

Weezer should have compared themselves to who they were working with before they forced such an unlikely partnership.