Invest Like a Boss Part 2: Buying and Selling 90s Rap Stocks
What if you could buy stock in rap lyrics and the stock price went up or down based on how true and/or relevant the lyrics become over time?
It’s an idea so insane, Wall Street is definitely working on it.
Here are some songs from the 90s, and why their stock would be good or bad to own today.
Song: “It Ain’t Hard to Tell”, by Nas. Year: 1994.
Description: A mellow brag rap with some pretty sweet samples (the keyboard from Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature”, a sax from Kool and the Gang) and some good lines. One not so great line—Nas describes rocking beats that are “smoother than moves by Villanova.”[1]
Analysis: Let’s break off the “smoother than moves by Villanova” lyric and make it a stock of its own. You could have bought that lyric dirt cheap in 1994. It might have sounded cool, but it was about as good a description of smooth as 5 o'clock shadow dipped in peanut brittle. For one thing, Villanova hadn’t made an NCAA Tournament in 3 years.
The line seems based on a fluky, fundamentally sound championship won 9 years prior. And I can't recall a single smooth move in the that pre-shot clock Pass-a-palooza.
Flash forward to 2018. Villanova has won two national championships in 3 years. With lots of smooth moves, including one of the greatest game winners in NCAA history to win the title in 2016.
Obviously this would be a great stock to have held on to. But in 2018, is it a buy or a sell? I say buy and hang on for one more season of smooth moves. And then sell right before the inevitable NCAA violations arrive to force ‘Nova to fire Jay Wright and hire Norman Dale from Hoosiers so they can get back to smoothly passing four times before every shot.[2]
Song: “Synthesizer” by Outkast. Year: 1998.
Description: A song that sounds the alarm at the speed at which technological advances are debasing the populace. It targets things like cybersex, plastic surgery, and freakishly effective fertility drugs. And you know they’re damn serious because there’s a lot of George Clinton spoken word.
Analysis: It’s a good song, but not something I’d want to own stock in today. Because 20 years later, science marches on and The Singularity, when man merges with machine, is less than 30 years away. If only Andre Benjamin hadn’t stopped rapping! One techno-warning wasn’t enough! We needed Synthesizer 2!
The “Synthesizer” lyric I would least want own stock in is this, from Andre: “Hurry hurry rush rush world on the move, marijuana illegal but cigarettes cool. I might look kinda funny but I ain’t a fool.”
Let’s break this down.
Still a yes on the “hurry hurry rush rush world on the move” part. But pot isn’t all that illegal anymore. Health weed is legal in 23 states and fun weed is legal in 4. And cigarettes aren’t all that cool. Tobacco sales have decreased significantly since the November 1998 tobacco settlement that makes cigarette companies to pay for ads that tell people how stupid it is to smoke.
As for the “might look kinda funny but I ain’t no fool part,” no one in 2018 thinks Andre is a fool or that 1998 Andre looked crazy. 1998 Andre would just be a hipster today. He may even have been The Alpha Hipster.
Song: “I think I can Beat Mike Tyson” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Year: 1989.
Description: A skinny kid novelty-raps his delusions of beating the most invincible fighter ever.
Analysis: Buy all the shares you can. Because I’m pretty sure Will Smith can take Mike Tyson now.
Since 1990, we’ve seen Tyson get knocked silly by Buster Douglas and then lose 5 more fights. We’ve seen him try to win by biting off a guy’s ear. And we’ve seen him get knocked out by dudes named Danny Williams and Kevin McBride.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen Smith get absolutely jacked for movies like I, Robot and look like a boxer in Ali. Mike hasn’t looked like a boxer since the 90s and intentional or not, he’s the funnier one now.
We’d all feel a lot better about the fate of the world right now if The Fresh Prince was the guy we were depending on to punch the shit out of an alien. Conversely, If Iron Mike makes a song called “I think I can Beat Will Smith” I’m sure it will be hilarious.
Song: “C.R.E.A.M.” (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) by the Wu-Tang Clan. Year 1993.
Description: Cash Rules Everything Around Me, CREAM! Get the money, Dollar dollar bill y’all.
Analysis: This is a great own—Cash still rules every thing around me, that’s for sure. But it might be about time to sell C.R.E.A.M. and buy stock in “B.R.A.T.S” (Bitcoin Rules All The Stuff) a hot new jam by The Peace Sign Tramp Stamps.[3]
Song: “Beepers” by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Year: 1989.
Description: It’s a song about electronic pagers, which were things people used in the 80s and 90s to let them know someone was trying to reach them and they should hustle over to the nearest landline to call them back. People fastened them to their belts and the things actually did beep—like the most annoying alarm clocks ever. They were used by doctors, drug dealers, and really popular people who left the house a lot.
Rapping over a heapin' helpin' of Prince’s “Bat Dance”, Mix-A-Lot describes how cool it was to be a really popular person with a pager.
Analysis: Hopefully you sold stock in this song about the same time you sold stock in actual beepers, around 1991.
Most Fascinating Lyric: “I got a cellular but you can’t have my digits. Motorola beeps and the boy gets with it.” Think about what’s he’s saying—Mix -A-Lot has a cell phone but still has a beeper—just to screen his cell calls with! My takeaway is this: God help us if the apocalypse robs of us Caller ID because I am not wearing a beeper. All the other post- apocalyptic shit I think we can handle. [4]
Song: “Scenario” by Tribe Called Quest. Year 1992.
Description: All-time great posse cut that includes Busta Rhymes’ breakout verse. But the lyric I want to examine is from Phife Dawg: “Brothers front. They say that we can’t flow. But we’ve been known to do the impossible like Broadway Joe.”
Analysis: I was sure this would have to be a sell. I mean, Broadway Who? How relevant is Joe Namath in 2018? He’s just some old guy who won a Super Bowl 50 years ago and should be more known to millennials for drunkenly telling a sideline reporter he wanted to kiss her.
But I looked into it and I was dead wrong. I underestimated the staying power of being the King of New York at any point. And the power of being the first big name athlete to guarantee a win in a big game at a time when no one in team sports did that. And then backing it up by just annihilating the other team by the humiliating score of 16 to 7.
Judging by more recent Namath themed lyrics, it appears Broadway Joe will always have value. Consider Chance the Rapper rapping “Pro Famous, I’m Broadway Joe Namath”. This was in 2016.
Consider Rhianna, earlier in 2018 rapping “Kitty, kitty baby, give that thing some rest/Cause you done beat it like the ’68 Jets”.
Chance and Rhi are big time. And they’re part of the '68 Jet Set.
So hold onto all Namath related rap stocks. They’ve got staying power. And in 30 years when we’re all bitcoin spending cyborgs living in a Caller ID-less hellscape, kids will still be rapping about a guy who threw more career interceptions than touchdowns but had a real cool nickname. For some damn reason. Probably the fur coats.
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[1] The full lyric is “Street’s disciple, I rock beats that’s mega-trifle, And groovy but smoother than moves by Villanova.”
[2] Next lyric: “Yet still a soldier, like Sly Stallone in Cobra.” This one doesn’t hold up as well. While I fully appreciate the scene where Cobra takes a break from a supermarket hostage crisis to drink a brewski, millennials won’t understand why he settled for Coors instead taking the time to just dodge a few bullets and find a decent IPA.
[3] Some lyrics: “I don’t want a macker, I just need a hacker. Need clothes and tech and times is tough. And Bitcoin Rules All the Stuff!"
[4] Also fascinating: “Pagers, call 'em what you want, Some brothers wear fake ones, still tryin' to flaunt. Walkin' in a party, lookin' like Joker, Big ole six inch garage door opener.” (Note: Mix-A-Lot says his real beeper looks “like a phaser," which apparently means he thinks it looks cool and probably means he's a trekkie.