TALKIN' VIDEOS

“Rugged Man… Hairy baboon!/ You could catch me at the Source Awards Jerkin’ off in the bathroom!”

A few years removed from ridiculous lines such as this, the self-proclaimed lowlife white boy from Long Island is back! Despite rumors of being developmentally disabled (the nice way of saying “he might be retarded”) and accusations of having been in a mental institution (a la Dave Chappelle), R.A. The Rugged Man chronicles his life and times as a white underground MC with his newest single and video “Lessons.” [watch it now]

Having been grinding nearly twenty years in the game, Rugged Man’s “Lessons” 12”-single paved the way for (get this) his DEBUT SOLO ALBUM. Cot DAMN! I don’t know how these rappers do it. You would think after year 15 or so without an LP one might decide to hang it up.

Distanced from his most popular alliance, stemming from his days as Eastern Conference Records’ whipping boy, the fact that a video was even shot for “Lessons” probably comes as a surprise to even the Rugged Man’s most devout fans. Who would expect an enjoyable music video from a white rapper from Long Island who looks more like a homeless Brad Garrett than anything a mainstream label would want to market? That, my friends, is the beauty of this composition.

The video conceptualizes Rugged Man’s speckled accounts of his highs and lows with comedic impersonations of well known and washed up celebrities he’s encountered and befriended (cough cough Kid ‘N’ Play… sorry, I’m feeling a little sick). He also physically manifests the inner-conflict of being a bum-ass white boy from Suffolk County and wanting to be a swanky upscale rap superstar by portraying both personas simultaneously. His inspired performance culminates in bum-ass Rugged Man winning out and beating R.A. the Media Whore’s face in repeatedly with a shovel.

While he claims to be neither mentally unstable nor challenged, R.A. the Rugged Man does some really retarded shit in this video. This highly entertaining one-man show gives us Rugged Man doing everything from panhandling, to coke-slut pimpin’, to doing a retarded-looking running man (or Roger Rabbit… you tell me) with a black kid, to smashing the living ape shit out of someone’s car with a baseball bat and a cinder block. That’s some real Long Island shit, there! Featuring an interpolation of the Beastie Boys and scratches of Sadat X on the hook, the Wild Cowboy kindly makes a dust-blunted appearance in the video VIP-area macking it to two of “swanky” Rugged Man’s groupies. From the look in his eyes, and the fact that he’s fuckin’ with Rugged Man, I’d say the nigga needs to slow down!

Looking like a high school football player who suffered one too many concussions, Rugged Man’s open-shirt, wildman-hobo antics actually seem a little overmatched by his newly polished, coherent and well… pretty damn clever lyrics over a really fresh, typically New York-underground style beat. Without giving away too much more to the video, I recommend this one for the day’s spinnage, even with more popular mainstream shit still on the board for me to review this week. If you're in the New York area, you know it's definitely a "Rugged Man" type of day anyway. I must also say, the more I look at this video the more the nigga (wait… can I call him that?) looks like he should be asking Ray Romano if he’s got anymore Lucky Charms in the cupboard. Crazy!

See you tomorrow where, we may jump from Long Island to L.A. or Atlanta as Snoop Dogg, Pretty Ricky and freshly-arrested Gucci Mane are all waiting in the on-deck circle for the hate-by-request.

Hit me up on the email... You know the drill by now. ronnie_mexxx@yahoo.com