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Sure, the title “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” is ridiculous. But
that’s not really important. Neither the song nor the video works
because of innovation, or technical perfection, or even grammatical
propriety. They work because they channel their club-hit influences so
well.
The video, like the track, is not particularly original. Just
as the song recycles the lyrics of wildly successful tracks including
“Snap Yo Fingers” and “Walk it Out,” the video is replete with the
apparent prerequisites for any commercial rap video: darkly-lit shots
of a club where beautiful women dance around the singer, with money
raining down and Cristal in the cups.
But just as the song is an undeniably catchy fusion of pure
pop-rap-bubblegum ridiculousness (the phrase “I’m gonna buy u a drank”
has never sounded so smooth), the music video too achieves success.
There’s one particularly memorable image where, as T-Pain sings “I got
money in the bank,” money appears on-screen, dripping with liquor. No
longer are money and dranks separate considerations; in T-Pain’s world,
you have money-dranks. In the ultimate display of making it big, crisp
Benjis serve as Solo cups. Who wouldn’t want to attend T-Pain’s party?
And that’s the secret to the success of T-Pain and Young Joc. It’s a fantasy, pure and simple.
Both artists (and the video’s viewers, living vicariously
through them) can “make it rain” like Adam “Pacman” Jones without
worrying about a single repercussion. And that’s why the club scene
gets recycled in so many guises, in so many songs, and in so many
videos. Getting your drank on is simply too appealing.
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