Just Ask Lil Mama

In my ongoing love affair with reality television, I've been enjoying a whole new season of America's Best Dance Crew. A show with Mario Lopez as the host shouldn't really be all that great, but I first fell in love with this show because of the Jabberwockeez--who were just incredibly intelligent dancers. They were so much fun to watch. This season hasn't been as good, but it's interesting. This time the dance team from Rutgers made the show, calling themselves "SassX7" (Sass times seven) although it looks pretty silly to see them doing their toe touches and back flips while other crews are breakin' on stage and doing crazy tricks. They lost tonight to the Boogie Bots, having failed to successfully impersonate Britney Spears times seven.

But as I was watching the show this time around, something that merely irked me in the first season now has me driven to distraction. And that's Lil Mama's inability to articulate her advice to the contestants. I have problems with her being a judge anyway. So her lip gloss be poppin'. So what? What does she really know about street dancing? At least Shane is a top choreographer. JC, while lame to me because of his boy band status, was at the height of the pop scene for half a minute and has more experience with group dancing. But I'm not sure what her credibility is for the show, other than she's young and an "of the millisecond" kind of pop star. She's only 19 years old--maybe even younger, I can't quite pin her birthdate down.  Maybe they brought her in for the youth factor.  Unfortunately for her, most of MTV's prime demographic hate her too. Rumor has it she is close to being replaced.  Anyhoo.

At the auditions for the second season, her advice consisted of the following. Feel free to reverse order and/or run repeat as often as you like, it still works: "I need you to come hard with it, yah'll better bring it, this is the second season. You have to be hard. This is the second season, yah'll gotta come with it, so you need to bring it, 'cause this is the second season. It's gotta be hard." She said this at least three times in a row in various combinations to each crew. I sort of understood where she was going with it. After all, it's going to be hella hard to erase the impression the Jabberwockeez made the first time around, and much of what most of the dance crews were doing looked derivative.

But then her advice just got more and more...nebulous...as the season started. I mean, I know it's supposed to be "street" and I know there is slang involved. I have no problem with slang--in fact, I think it's a great way to express things that traditional language can't quite capture. But I can usually follow the slang. When she tries to explain to them what they need to be doing to improve themselves, I'm not sure if it's poetry or pathetic. Here are some choice samples:

(to Sassx7) Yah'll have to be careful or yah'll be pigeon held.

Yah'lls perfeck, yah'lls just need to just keep working on yah'lls perfection. (If it's perfect, how can you keep working on it?)

Yah'll need to mediate yah'lls bodies.

Just make sure you take that extra stab...into the heart...of the chicken. (laughs)

When yah'll had them little pieces where yah'll exploded, that was interesting...(pause)...fix your face.

Now where would you begin with advice like that? How would you begin to stab the heart of the Dance Chicken, much less take an extra stab at it?  Most of the crews nod while their faces look like "Sez what??" They can't disrespect her, because she could fail to vote to save them if they land in the bottom two. But most of them look like deers caught in headlights every time she opens her mouth. Her lip gloss is poppin', though.

But, it won't keep me from watching the show. The show is still full of win. In the words of the departing captain of the Rutgers team, "Thank you for the awesome experience. It was awesome."

-- Virgil