I want to congratulate Bhad Bhabie on a great song in These Heaux, in addition to a feat of spelling. Actually, there’s a lot more to congratulate her on: née Danielle Bregoli (born in 2003; while not technically a baby, now somewhere in that liminal space between adolescent and adult), Bhad Bhabie initially rose to stardom as a meme from her Dr. Phil episode entitled, “I Want To Give Up My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried To Frame Me For A Crime.” Since then, she has Cardi-B-style leveraged her reality moment to become a rap star, and is now signed to Atlantic. No way she makes it as big as Cardi, but what a move. Salute to the next generation, right?
Something you might have noticed about These Heaux, and all other Danielle Bregoli songs, is that they are mad short. It’s not just Danielle– it’s pretty much every rapper her age (and particularly the ones from South Florida). Recall what adults are calling the ‘super-incompetent smartphone generation’; people, including rappers, under age 20 or so have internet-shaped attention spans, and accordingly, lots of the rap tracks coming out from the new class are clocking in below 2 minutes. Which is convenient for some who can’t rap too well, and just of-the-moment for others. One other thing to remember is that Spotify counts 1500 plays of your music as an ‘album sale’, so if your songs are shorter you rack up the plays faster and make more money. Shrewd kiddos, aren’t they?
Don’t know if you’ve been watching the NCAA Tournament, but if you are then you’ve seen that Michigan’s shorts are SHORT. They buy them short in the first place and then roll them up, defying the last like 30 years in basketball shorts, and also recalling the OG short short that is actually easier to play in. Incidentally, it was also Michigan who made baggy shorts a thing in the 80s, so why not leave it up to them to change it back. And for all of us off the court, keep an eye out for a continued rise in dude hemlines everywhere. (Regular men’s shorts have been shortening steadily for the last year or two, but the basketball-shorten feels like a stake in the ground. Next up: Speedos, calling it now.)
If you are up on that kindle life, perhaps you find yourself waiting in a bunch of digital lines for the e-books you want to read. Maybe you even occasionally break down and buy one. Support authors and all that, but also grab a deal where you can: BookBub sends a daily email with alerts on free and discounted ebooks that are available for short windows of time– prices range from free to $3.99. Sign up, read, and make your short list shorter.
