Edd’s MANtra: Bare Facts

Question: What does a desperate, down on-his/her-luck R&B singer do to raise his/her profile?


Answer: They get naked, of course.


Such is the case of Keri Hilson and Raheem DeVaughn. Both are moderately talented, both are hungry for success, so both have decided to take slutty shortcuts. Both of their new videos would make my grandma drink 2 liters of holy water.


And you know what? Their music is still lame.


First is Keri’s new video, “The Way You Love Me.” You know a video is gonna be bad when the still screenshot is of her licking a gigantic vault in her underwear. The video features her, Faith Evans, Dawn from Danity Kane/Dirty Money/the local car wash and a couple others as some sort of low-budget Charlie’s Angels. The video, while bad, doesn’t bother me as much as the lyrics – she sings, excuse me, SCREAMS, the song while dropping F-bombs all over the place. And not in the funny way like Cee Lo. Now, y’all know your boy is far from squeamish when it comes to sex but even I don’t want a sweaty lady screaming “F*** Me! F*** Me!” in my face.


And then, we have Raheem DeVaughn. He certainly has a following – I know Desiree is a fan – but I’ve never been impressed by the guy. Mainly because of his horrible lyrics – remember when he was comparing women to Happy Meals and Big Macs? I only know of one person who would find that sexy…



In his new video “She’s Single,” which swipes Lil Wayne’s beat, DeVaughn drops his usual lame lyrics (“Tonight she’s single/game over, it’s a wrap, like Bingo…) along with a softcore porn performance. It distracts us from the horrible songwriting, I’ll give him that.


Yes, I know sex sells, but come on. Crack sells too, but that doesn’t mean we should buy it. Maybe if these two refocused their strategy and focused on the quality of their material they wouldn’t have to resort to cheap tricks.


Heh, cheap tricks.


Some might say, “You’re blogging about their videos, they’re getting publicity.” True, but when has negative publicity helped a career? Besides Kanye West. Or Kim Kardashian. Or Antoine Dodson.


Maybe I need a sex tape…