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Nov 18, 2005

From 8 Mile to 38 mpg · by Rafi Kam


By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we remembered the Scion.

I’ve been mean to commercial radio before but the truth is I can’t stop listening. What else would I have to write about?

The other day I was driving to work and I caught this Honda Civic radio ad on Hot 97. The whole spot was framed as an organized rap battle between 2 mc’s trading good-natured barbs which for some reason kept mentioning the new 2006 Honda Civic!

Honda has realized only 3 years too late that people are were going cuckoo for rap battles. But their strength is that they’ve realized the way to improve on this simplistic format of competing wordsmiths. Any hip-hop fan who bemoans the lack of subject matter in battle rhymes will be delighted to hear how Honda has innovated the game and how well these 2 salesmen do at sticking to the theme.

“The ‘06 is so sick / how do i ride, ask yo chick”

Look how far we have come since the first rapping McNuggets. Well at least the lyricism has improved. Check the multi in this actual rhyme from the commercial….

“The re-engineered Civic / this ain’t a weird gimmick”

Perhaps with that last line the commercial protests too much.

Thanks to the new marketing, the 2006 Honda Civic is also a hot hip-hop concert this year. When did Honda develop this love of hip-hop? Honda, we hardly knew ye! But why is it so hard to find pictures of the car at that site? Puzzling….

I guess the Honda Civic is as much “of the culture” (to quote the Dame) as some blinging watch batteries so we can’t be mad at this. KRS said we need some hip-hop doctors, hip-hop garbagemen, hip-hop astronauts. Unfortunately. so far his vision seems to be manifesting only in the advertising industry.

Comments for "From 8 Mile to 38 mpg"

  1. DJ Honda’s first album is a bonafide classic. Makes you wonder why Redman stayed so loyal to Erick Sermon when he sounded so great over other beats.

    God bless the rappin’ nuggets, they knew damn well that they couldn’t cold yank the plug on R&B and that’s bugged.
    — R.H.S.    Nov 18, 10:45 PM   

  2. yall dont wanna see me pull my v sport trigga, make your specs look like a escorts figga. I gotta ease off the gas when I race your ford your blocks runnin hot mines cool to tha core. I have much more to rap about(concerning hondas superiority), but who should I contact with my unstoppable, too hot for tv but not cable, lyricly unstable, honda music


    — v sport    Aug 13, 08:10 PM