Missy Elliott: "Wake Up"

It is my contention that Missy Elliott represents Lady Gaga's future.  This may seem a bit crazy right now with Missy more than six years removed from cultural relevance and Lady Gaga at the top of the pop game and the winner of five (five?) Grammys.  And, I'll admit, Lady Gaga has gone higher than Missy ever did, even at her peak.  But the shoe still fits.  Both are artists who ultimately have no demonstrably extraordinary music-related talent: neither can sing, neither can rap, and both are decent but not world-changing dancers.  Both gained their popularity due mostly to the one-two punch of excellent production/hook-writing and time-stoppingly wonderful music videos.

Yes, those are tiny back-up dancers on the top of that building.

Though both are timeless in their own ways (neither Missy's old school swag nor Lady Gaga's meat dress will be any more or less out of place in twenty years than they were in their prime), neither will make a lasting imprint on American music.  Yes, Missy came out with some awesome club songs and spit to some of the best beats of Timbaland's career.  But it's 2012 and you probably haven't heard Missy's name since...what?...2005?  It's going to be the same with Lady Gaga in 2020 because, at the end of the day, neither she nor Missy have any talents to carry them once the well of catchy hooks has dried up.  Of course, it's possible that the well will never dry up for Lady Gaga, just like it's possible that Missy will make a huge comeback with her next album, due out in 2012.  But I wouldn't count on it.

Anyway, here's the line, from the song "Wake Up," which came out back when Missy was hot enough to get a Hova feature on one of her tracks:

"Hip-Hop, be my life-saver / like Kobe and Shaq if they left the Lakers."


Um.  What?

Awkwardness of Reference: Look.  I didn't try to explain this line for a reason.  Not only is it, like most Missy lines, awkward in composition, it simply doesn't make any sense.  Kobe and Shaq would not be life-savers if they left the Lakers, unless they went to med school.  They would be hurting the Lakers.  Because they were the marquee players for that team at the time.  I have no idea what Missy's talking about, but she doesn't have a smooth enough flow to disguise the fact that this is a terrible, incoherent line.  0 out of 5.

Cleverness of Reference: I briefly tried to convince myself that I simply didn't understand the simile Missy was trying to employ here.  Then I realized that no one understands it because it's a non sequitar.  0 out of 5.

Appropriateness of Reference: Of all of the categories, this may be the one which this awful line least fits in.  This line is NOT appropriate.  It's the exact opposite of appropriate.  0 out of 5.

Shaqness of Reference: Well...um.  Technically, if you were going to mention Lakers in the early 00s, Kobe and Shaq were the ones to name-drop.  So that's there.  On the other hand, Shaq doesn't make sense in this line, so the reference would be more befitting another player who played for the Lakers at the time but was terrible, like Maurice Carter.  We'll compromise.  2.5 out of 5.

This is the only picture of Maurice Carter on the Internet.  I considered just using a picture of Trevor Ariza because I knew you wouldn't notice.

FINAL SHAQ SCORE: 2.5 OUT OF 5