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Five Spot: Flipperace Is Magically Delicious

By Shea Serrano in Five Spot, Screwston, Texas

Friday, Mar. 27 2009 @ 1:02PM

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Last year (around September or October, we think), The Game and Lil' Bow Wow held a video-game football battle with $100,000 on the line. (Recession? Don't be absurd.) It was cool for a second, until you realized that you were just watching two guys play video games.

At any rate, Bow Wow apparently never paid all of the money, so The Game has challenged him to a double-or-nothing rematch. Now, amid the wash of things that ran through our mind when we read this - betting someone who doesn't pay (twice) doesn't really seem like a good idea, how sad it is that we just spent 45 seconds reading this, sometimes we hate our lives - was one Lil Flip.

You remember Flip, right? He's that magical fellow from Cloverleaf who almost convinced everyone that leprechauns were cool a few years back. Last we heard, he had an album on the horizon, so in honor of that, you'll find four of his great songs (and an absolutely gawdawful one) after the jump.

"Game Over": How ill was this song when it came out? So ill, in fact, that we gave serious consideration to getting a "Game Over" tattoo on our forearm just because it looked like that's what Flip was doing in the video. Smartly, we backed out at the last second, instead opting for some Chinese lettering on our foot that (apparently) says "Hawk." Keep it elegant, baby. That's our motto.

"Never Take Me Alive" feat. Z-Ro (and maybe Trae?): Remember that scene in Hustle and Flow where DJ is trying to make beats on that little keyboard that that fiend traded him for drugs? We're pretty sure they came up with this beat in a very similar fashion. Also of note: Will-Lean is listed on the credits here along with Flip and Z-Ro, but that sounds an awful lot like Trae, doesn't it?

"The Way We Ball": If you wrote a position paper that argued that with "The Way We Ball," "Game Over," and "I Can Do That," Lil' Flip was almost solely responsible for the explosion of baby-crack rap early in the decade, we wouldn't say otherwise. "That ain't platinum that's a silvery chain." That's more the clever than he intended, we think.

"Sunshine": This is one of those situations where we wish there was a more objective way of measuring just how much one song could unravel someone's credibility. Since there's not, the current assumption is "a fuckin' lot." It did get a lot of radio play, though. The first time we heard it was one of those "Oh, goddammit!" moments, because we knew it was going to be played every 20 minutes for the next two months.

"I'm So Gone": It's almost always tacky, but know this: if you're a rapper, and you sample a non-rap/blues/R&B song from before 1995, we will champion your cause. (This also applies to any Phil Collins song, anytime.) And if you somehow work "I've been rolling paper squares all night long" into the chorus, well you, sir, have an underground hit on your hands.