(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Singles: #29: Lil’ Jon & The Eastside Boyz – Get Low (2003)

 What’s fascinating about a paradigm-shifting song is that, at first listen, it sounds horrendous. Lil ‘Jon’s “Get Low” was like that. I’m sure I uttered a “what the fuck is this?” when the song first entered my world—it sounded cocksure, filthy, intimidating, unintelligible and aurally abrasive. After a few 100 listens, I would’ve still used those adjectives to describe the song; only this time I would’ve intended it to be compliments. It’s fair to say that what made “Get Low” so great and important is that it never made any attempts to play along with the already established tastes of hip-hop lovers leading up to that point. Some of the songs recorded pre-“Get Low” would have been life-altering if they found Lil’ Jon’s secret formula before he did. Finders keepers, I guess.




Crunk was the first true mainstream pop trend of the zeroes. If we were still sitting around in 2003 discussing what kind of music will this decade be remembered by, “crunk” seemed to be the only rational response—The Strokes’ game-changing rock clearly had no legs, Dizzee Rascal’s grime were never going to catch in the States, and the mash-up craze were irking a lot of people, even back then. But not only was crunk immense—“Get Low”, at its highest, were #2 on the charts—it just felt like the first sub-genre this decade has seen that has realistic commercial appeal. And it was the first movement that made the East vs. West rivalry take notice. Before it was New York and Los Angeles, and then suddenly Atlanta and Crunk was in the mix (Chicago and Houston and Bay Area followed suit).

Before we go any further, what is this “crunk”, by the way? If you weren’t from Atlanta, you probably haven’t heard of it until Mary J. Blige mentioned it in “Family Affair”, or maybe when Lil’ Jon himself kept alluding to “getting crunk” at a VMA telecast. I found it a little weird, especially the first few times I heard it. It was vulgar, loud, unclean, and grimy; rap that refuses to pull its punches. Coming off a period of hip-hop where Lil’ Kim was probably the most lewd character, it blows my mind to think now that Lil’ Jon were sharing spots with Alicia Keys in Justin Timberlake on the charts. Lil’ Jon regarded it as “black punk rock” from time to time. And while the two styles differed when it came to their message and their objective, in terms of culture shock though, the comparison felt pretty apt to me.

“Get Low” doesn’t seem as wild listening to it now, but really, it’s still a jungle of a song. You got whistles, you got high-pitched howls, you got synths that sound like their about to drop the A-bomb, and you got a continuous bombardment of drunken horny bastards shouting. And over five and half minutes long, the thing can be fatiguing if you’re not in the correct mood. But as far as adrenaline-raising music went in the zeroes, “Get Low” was like the HGH they shot into baseball players so they can jack up 60 homeruns every year. I’ve never been at a strip club at the American South, but every time the DJ at the popular club plays “Get Low”, it seems to put everyone in that same wild atmosphere.

Speaking of “Get Low” in clubs, for the majority of the decade that just passed, it became some sort of an anthem for nightlife seekers. The catch phrases it popularized are mostly responsible: “To the window, to the wall”, “Clap yo’ ass like hands”, “til the sweat drop down my balls”, “tig ol’ bitties”, “fifty-leven times”. And then there’s “skeet”, I don’t know what it means, but I’m certain that its meaning is dirty. There was a period in the zeroes when knowing these phrases by heart seemed necessary as a club-goer.

Lil’ Jon. An unlikely hero of any decade, but he was probably one of the greatest characters produced by the zeroes. You see the dreads, the giant sun glasses, the pimp cup, the grills—he’s like a cartoon character whose actions were more eccentric than what he looks like. His name was top billed, but he never really rapped in “Get Low”, like in all of his songs, and relinquished the duties to the East Side Boyz. Dave Chappelle’s comedy was likely most responsible for popularizing the “YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH’s” and the “WWWWWWHHHHHHHHAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTT’s” and the “OOOOOKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK’s”, but it’s Lil’ Jon who should get the due for bringing the craziness on the table.