Onliest (only-est)

Here is some data on the young man:



Age: 41

Race: African American

Style: Buppie/Bourgeois, yet very very open to most things...

Love for music: Extreme

Tolerance for ignorance/BS: Non-existant

This being said, I'd also like to apologize for the flurry of expletives that may (or may not) follow.

I am a writer, and I have an almost violent love for the English language, and proper use of it. Don't get me wrong - I grew up with hip hop, and as an even younger man, I had a vice-like grip on all things slang. I also used to get mistaken for a caucasian on the phone regularly, but that's neither here nor there...


I consider myself a child of the 80s. A majority of my favourite music came out in the 1980s, and a good amount of the important things in my life also came from the "me" decade. Could be why I am such a greedy, selfish bastard, but I digress...


I am also a music fanatic. I love all kinds of music. I like the fact that if I do a quick mix on Pandora I can go from Diana Krall to Underworld to Frankie Knuckles to Lupe Fiasco all within the same hour. I like being eclectic. I embrace my eclecticism...

(I know - get to the freaking point...)


So @ 3 AM today, the 9 month-old Mini-Me decided sleep was for pussies, and decided he and I should pow-wow. So I am up bouncing hin on my shoulder and listening to the local old-school R&B station, and they had a decent run of songs I knew and loved from the mid -to-late 80s:

Smile by Angela Winbush

My First Love by Avant (Sure, it was a remake of a great Rene and Angela song, but he did a decent cover...)

Don't You Know by Luther Vandross

After a while (and a bottle, and a couple of threats,) he went to sleep. I was awakened by my wife 3 hours later (telling me I overslept - again...), and the radio was still on. A nationally syndicated morning show, catering to the 35 & up African-American demographic (aside from me, apparently) was on, and they were playing There Goes My Baby by Charlie Wilson of The Gap Band.

(*heavy sigh*)


I normally don't have a problem with artists that were popular a decade or two earlier coming out with a new record. I mean, I was 8th row for The Stones, back when Mick was barely pushing 100 and Keith wasn't considered the undead.

*Let me also add that this song is kind of old, at least a year, so many of you may be thinking "why is he making such a big deal out of this?" Well, I'm sorry. I have heard this song a billion times since it came out, and I have let this shit go on for too long. Again, I'm sorry for not addressing this sooner.*

I have a problem with this song not because The Gap Band was on the charts so long ago ( I loved Early In The Morning, Burn Rubber, Party Train, Yearning For Your Love, etc.), but because (A) The Gap Band's lyrics (from what I remember) contained complete sentences, and proper fucking english, and (B) well, I can't remember what B was gonna be... But come the HELL on...

"There goes my baby
There goes my destiny
Onliest one for me"

Fucking Onliest.

Really? Really Charlie Wilson? I reveled in the fact that you were on the Boomerang soundtrack with Aaron Hall. I even gave you a pass on Charlie, last name Wilson, because I thought you were on the whole "old-school-concert-tour-80s-love fest" vibe, so I figured you were giving something to the fans of The Gap Band, while trying to get in on that single women age 40 and up thing. But this? This shit here? Unforgiveable. Then you follow it up with this:



"She gone wear my ring.

("She gone take my name")

Take her to the cook outs.

("Me and her gone hang")

Take her to my momma house"



You said that shit ON PURPOSE, Charlie! You said "take her to my momma house" on fucking purpose! In the words of The Pet Shop Boys, "what have I done to deserve this?" I'm sure someone somewhere said "you need to use broken English on your songs! That'll get 'em buying Charlie Wilson records!" At the end of the day, good for you for playing on the ignorance of your target audience and getting paid very well for it. I, for one won't be buying that shite. I'm gonna go home and listen to the Gap Band V album and reminisce...



tym