TONY: Wayne’s World

Okay, so I feel compelled to stray from my usual verbose and introspective blogging style in favor of getting across some information that is really important.  As a disclaimer, I understand that I may get in trouble for what I’m about to say, and I may incur criticism/disgust/anger from my peers and reading public.  None of that matters.  What does matter is that I have finally figured out the one thing that is terrible about living in Atlanta.  You may ask, “Tony, really?  There’s only one thing?”  Yes, only one thing.  And his name is Lil’ Wayne.

For the uninformed: Lil’ Wayne is the self-proclaimed ‘best rapper alive’.  As a lover of both hip-hop and good things in general, I find myself compelled to disagree with him.  Unfortunately, no matter how hard one tries to avoid him, here in Atlanta Lil’ Wayne will ALWAYS find you.  For example, during my drive to school each morning (an indispensable time of reflection and regeneration of my fragile med student psyche), I will need to endure no less than four “hits” from Lil’ Wayne on the radio.  “Hey Tony, why don’t you just change the station?”  Great idea.  I think I’ll try it.  Oh, here’s a great song by another artist.  I think I’ll continue listening to this song because of it’s refreshingly Wayne-Free sound…Oh, wait—I spoke to soon.  It turns out that Lil’ Wayne is the guest star on every song ever made.  And forget about going out to a nightclub—every night is Wayne night.  If you move to Atlanta, he will spiritually and emotionally terrorize you everywhere you go.

How could the burgeoning career of one rap artist have such an effect on my quality of life here at Emory?  Honestly, I could come up with a thousand, nay, A Milli-on reasons why this man’s popularity upsets me.  I’ll give you two of them:

1)  The unfortunate reality that these two individuals must be related:

Lil’ Wayne sounds like a gremlin.  I’ve never heard another human being’s voice sound like his, but I suspect that it has arisen as a result of his oftentimes-glorified years of illicit substance use.  Clearly he is currently a role model to more Americans than any one physician could be.

2)  He is a terrible rapper.  His lyrics are often rambling and nonsensical.  As a medical student, however, I take extra offense to the many lyrics that are both nonsensical and medically inaccurate.  Frankly, it is horrifying to me that there could be thousands of people who believe that a ‘venereal disease’ and a ‘menstrual bleed’ are one and the same, simply because Lil’ Wayne said so in a hit song.  It’s simply irresponsible, Wayne, and I will stand for it no longer.

Now that this rant has come full circle, and I have had time to reflect, I think that there may actually be one benefit to my constant exposure to the ‘best rapper alive’.  His ascendancy in the music industry has shown me that anybody can be famous.  Even me.  If this med school thing does not end up working out, and I retain the ability to speak and put together mildly coherent sentences, I too can be the best rapper alive.  A few classmates and I decided to take a step in this direction with our lauded class video.

So, thank you Lil’ Wayne.
Your terrible example has given me the courage to step forward and turn the hip-hop world on its head with my own brand of witty, coherent, and medically accurate rhymes.

I couldn’t have done it without you.