1 April 2004
The capital of US chart music in 2004 was Atlanta. Already that year, OutKast had occupied the top two spots of the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks, the sort of pre-digital feat then associated with The Beatles. Now here’s Usher, Texas-born but relocated to Atlanta at age ten, with the first of four colossal 2004 US number ones from his smash hit 15-million-unit-selling album Confessions. Not only that, ‘Yeah!’ is a veritable A-Town A-list: Lil Jon, the king of crunk, as hype-man; Ludacris, already a successful rapper and soon to be Fast & Furious repertory actor, as MC; Usher himself at the peak of his R&B-pop career. Add the spicy celebrity showbiz gossip that Usher had apparently cheated on another Atlanta singing star, Chilli from TLC, then bring to the boil.
For the most part, ‘Yeah!’ is a thrilling dancefloor jam. Its mix of styles creates crackling tension and release. Lil Jon’s raucous hype spills giddily all over that sparse, grinding crunk and those piercing ice-cold synths. Usher sells us on the drama; the verses are already in an urgently high key, but the pre-chorus gear change ups the stakes even higher: “Cause I don’t know, if I take that chance / Just where’s it gonna lead” And the chorus is a fist-in-the-air triumph. So far, so good.
The best and the worst of ‘Yeah!’, though, is the rap by Ludacris. It starts brilliantly: the opening couplet’s outrageous rhyme of “ri-dic-u-LOUS” and “con-spic-u-OUS” may be the best lyric of the year. From here it could have been, with its choice between the Jag and the Rolls plus a pinkie ring valued over three hundred thousand, a full-on parody of the try-hard, big-talking club player. Instead, it slips into the comfortable designer loafers of dumb entitled misogyny. Any benefit of the doubt that would have had me try a piss-take reading of “If you hold the head steady I’m-a milk the cow” gets dispelled with its crass, sexist pay-off line: “we want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed” recalls Kinky Friedman’s feminist-baiting ’70s male chauvinist ditty ‘Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns In The Bed’. Yes, Ludacris returns for a fine coda that has me instinctively doing the clock-wind finger action with each pass of his “take that and rewind it back”. However, my qualms are in.
I suppose it won’t come as a spoiler to anyone who remembers 2004 to say that, for all its faults, ‘Yeah!’ will turn out not to be the most problematic number one of the year. Wait ’til you see what’s next.
