The Risk Of Trannie Crunk

FROM DEEP INSIDE THE MYSPACES House of Ladosha Crunk music died in like 2005, shortly after it became Lil Jon's energy drink. (Yes, and he made an album called Crunk Juice.) It was the "defining sound" of 2004. It was greatest when it was dirty and absurd—some of the best work done in the arena of crunk was about buttocks, and sometimes about the lighter side of rape. It lent itself to even more absurdity on the Internets. It was the really ugly, slow drunk cousin of ghettotech and the bastard stepson of booty music (2 Live Crew and friends). But things stalled out! There were only so many songs one could engineer to one beat, maybe, while shout-grunting things about ass and drinking and stabbing. Also, it was heavily commercialized, obviously, and product-involved art forms tend to burn fast and hard. (PS: Relatedly, Fifty Cent has a reality show now.) But there is nothing that the gays can't save! They drive up in their spaceship from a bad neighborhood, past the vogue balls, and give you ... trannie crunk!