This spring, the rap world unleashed a best-selling monster upon us unsuspecting listeners. That beast took the form of MIMS' self-promoting anthem "This Is Why I'm Hot." The single was released in late January, and after a scant few months the song had become so ubiquitous that it managed to take the holy grail of achievements for singles - it topped the Billboard Hot 100 Singles list for two weeks. Since then, the music world has vomited up countless numbers of remixes and rehashes, and the stodgy old white guys over at Microsoft have attempted to capitalize on the song's popularity by including it in a commercial for the Zune.
I could go on here talking trash about what is undoubtedly one of the most widely known songs of the year. It would be easy - lyrics this inane haven't topped the Hot 100 since the Macarena. As a religious studies concentrator, however, I find something more deeply troubling about the song than its glaring stupidity alone.
The artist, born as Shawn Mims, turned his real-life surname into an acronymic version of itself, standing for "Music Is My Savior." Considering how his hit single demonstrates the high esteem in which he holds himself, it would not be a stretch of the imagination to assume that MIMS fancies his song as the acme of musical perfection. Thus, by the transitive property, "This Is Why I'm Hot" is MIMS' savior. In one respect this is true; after all, it has certainly saved his bank account from ever being overdrawn. Does the song, however, compare to the one true savior, Jesus Christ?
Let's review the song's lyrics to reach a conclusive answer to this question. In the chorus, MIMS asserts that he is "hot 'cause he's fly," and that all the rest of us "ain't 'cause we not (fly)." Outside of our Christological debate, I can't help but to point out the ironic fact that MIMS declares his superiority over everyone else in a song in which he samples three other popular hip-hop artists, but that's irrelevant. MIMS demonstrates his massive superiority complex by repeating the phrase "this is why I'm hot" - by my count, a full 39 times through the course of the song - while denouncing the rest of us as decidedly un-hot on at least half a dozen instances.
For comparison, why don't we examine Jesus' No. 1 hit single, the Sermon on the Mount? The opening of the Sermon, known as the Beatitudes, features the famous assertion that the meek will inherit the earth. Additionally, Jesus makes references to the so-called "salt of the Earth." Although the connotations of Puritanesque modesty and hard work that this phrase carries in English were not present in Christ's Aramaic, at the time salt represented wisdom, purity and the convenant with God. All in all, regardless of language differences between ancient and modern times, Christ heaped praise upon those who were humble. The ego trip that is "This Is Why I'm Hot" shows that MIMS is about as humble as Hillary Clinton is warm and inviting. Need I say more?
MIMS' decisive lack of meekness in his song is not the only departure from Christ's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. In the third verse, MIMS states that when "n*****s start to hate" he will "rearrange their faces." I'd like to turn your attention to a little part of the Sermon called the Lord's Prayer, in which Jesus tells humanity to "forgive them that trespass against us." Maybe it's just me, but a threat to disfigure anyone who crosses him doesn't make MIMS look particularly amenable to forgiveness. Elsewhere in the Sermon, Jesus asks his listeners to, when struck on one side of their face, turn the other cheek, and he specifically denounces the Hammurabic notion of an eye for an eye. Where famous peacemakers like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. drew from the Sermon in developing their respective philosophies of satyagraha and civil disobedience, MIMS' threat of retaliation against those who slander him clashes directly with Christ's teachings.
I could go on about how un-Christlike MIMS demonstrates himself to be for longer than the space of this column would allow - for instance, while the Lord's Prayer asks God not to lead us into temptation, MIMS describes how his prowess in the recording studio helps him to pick up "shorties" - but I think I've demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that the only reason MIMS might be hot in the hereafter is because he'll be surrounded by fire and brimstone as he burns for eternity in hell. Be sure to join me next week, when I examine whether Fergie really is as delicious as she purports herself to be.
Adam Cambier '09 can sell a mill saying nothing on the track.
