SOUNDTRACK: THE ROOTS feat. JILL SCOTT-“You Got Me” (1999).
I’ve wanted to listen to more from The Roots ever since I was exposed to them on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. But as typically happens, I’m listening to other things instead. So this seemed like a good opportunity to check them out (based on Samantha Irby’s rave below).
One of the best things about this recording (and The Roots in general) is Questlove’s drumming. In addition to his being a terrific drummer, his drums sound amazing in this live setting.
Erykah Badu sings on the album but Jill Scott (Jilly from Philly) who wrote the part, sings here.
It starts out quietly with just a twinkling keyboard and Scott’s rough but pretty voice. Then comes the main rapping verses from Black Thought. I love the way Scott sings backing vocals on the verses and Black Thought adds backing vocals to the chorus.
Midway through the song, it shifts gears and gets a little more funky. Around five minutes, the band does some serious jamming. Jill Scott does some vocal bits, the turntablist goes a little wild with the scratching and Questlove is on fire.
Then things slow down for Scott to show off her amazing voice in a quiet solo-ish section. This song shows off how great both The Roots and Jill Scott are. Time to dig deeper.
[READ: November 1, 2020] Wow, no thank you.
This book kept popping up on various recommended lists. The bunny on the cover was pretty adorable, so I thought I’d check it out. I’d never heard of Samantha Irby before this, but the title and the blurbs made this sound really funny.
And some of it is really funny. Irby is self-deprecating and seems to be full of self-loathing, but she puts a humorous spin on it all. She also has Crohn’s disease and terribly irritable bowels–there’s lots of talk about poo in this book.
Irby had a pretty miserable upbringing. Many of the essays detail this upbringing. She also has low self-esteem and many of the essays detail that. She also doesn’t take care of herself at all and she writes about that. She also doesn’t really want much to do with children or dogs. And yet somehow she is married to a woman with children.
From what some of these essays say, it sounds like she is married to this woman yet somehow lives an entirely separate life from the rest of the house. It’s all rather puzzling, although I suppose if you are already a fan, you may know many of the details already.
Into the Gross
This essay is a good example of what’s in the book. In this one, Irby mocks the world of home beauty regime. In part she does this because she doesn’t seem to care about herself at all: “Wow, she got that skin just from vitamins??’ I sigh, taking a sip of a warm Crush grape soda I opened either three hours or three days ago.” She talks about her daily activities from bathing to watching TV and then falls asleep dreaming of beneficial herbs. “Which I will never take.”
Girls Gone Mild
She is insulted when a waiter asks her and her lady is it’s moms’ night out (that’s pretty insulting in any situation). But she is outraged on her own behalf “Yes, I am wearing soft, pull-on, straight-leg, Gloria Vanderbilts, but I also have cool glasses and a motherfucking hand tattoo.” Then the essay gives a breakdown of a typical day for her. Wake at 8:30. Contemplate getting up by 9AM. Plan to get ready to go out tonight starting at noon. 5PM is the absolute latest she can bail without upsetting people. Getting ready involves getting made up, but let’s be honest “I am wearing actual pajamas, not just real clothes I’ve fallen asleep in. [They came] from the sleepwear section at Kohls.” I appreciated her time at the club (it’s very loud, there are obnoxious guys). She manages to stay up until 3AM. Quite the feat.
Hung Up!
Is about phones and social media. Irby deleted her Facebook account a few years ago and never looked back.
Late 1900s Time Capsule
Even though Irby is a decade younger than me I could totally relate to this 90s time capsule, which is about the importance of the mixtape.
Here is her 90s mixtape for the reader
- INDIGO GIRLS-“World Falls”
- PEARL JAM-“Black” [“Eddie was the perfect embodiment of Brokenhearted Sensitive Grunge man: I lived for him then and I still do. I would totally listen to him howl abou his electric bill.”]
- SARAH McLACHLAN-“Elsewhere”
- AARON HALL-“I Miss You”
GINUWINE-“I’ll Do Anything/I’m Sorry”
DRU HILL-“Beauty”
CARL THOMAS-“Hey Now” She loved this kind of “crying-ass, begging-ass, I’m-sorry-ass, you’re-so-beautiful-ass ’90s R&B song.” This is one place where our tastes diverge. - HOLE-“Softer, Softest” She loved Courtney Love, the queen of alternative girls even though 99 percent of the lyric are confusing as fuck.
- THE BREEDERS-“Mad Lucas” Everyone loves “Cannonball” but this is “a truly bonkers surf-rock, slow jam that you could probably bone to.”
- DAVE MATTHEWS BAND-“I’ll Back You Up” She has a funny story about living in a crack den (!) and saving her DMB cassette from a junky. Also “If you hate Dave Matthews, that shit is on you.”
- ALANIS MORISSETTE-“Wake Up” She read an article in 2019 from a woman who had loved Jagged Little Pill when it came out but her husband made her realize the album sucks. “First of all, why you would ask a man anything is beyond me. Also, accepting his assessment of an album emeat for hyperemotional girls twenty years after it came out is bullshit.”
- TORI AMOS-“Tear in You Hand” [I have noticed that Tori has been getting a lot of casual mentions lately. There’s this one here and a lengthy discussion about her in the first episode of Everything Sucks on Netflix.] “I got front row seats to see Tori a few years ago at the Chicago Theater [really? how?] and a sobbing woman broke my toe as she ran screaming for the stage when Tori sang this during the encore. I wasn’t even mad. I get it!”
- SMASHING PUMPKINS-“Soma”
THE JULIANA HATFIELD THREE-“Spin the Bottle”
She’s heard “today” a hundred thousand times, but “Soma is her choice because she likes sad and soothing shit. She bought the Reality Bites soundtrack for Lisa Loeb, but “Spin the Bottle” won her over. - THE CRANBERRIES-“Waltzing Back”
- MARIAH CAREY ft. BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY “Easily in the top five Best Breakup Songs of All Time”
- LIZ PHAIR-“Explain It to Me” If you lived in Chicago circa 1993 of course you loved Liz. [I enjoyed this line]: “I don’t know shit about the Stones, so I definitely don’t understand the correlation between this album and their Exile on Main Street, because, honestly? I don’t have to!”
- PORTISHEAD-“Undenied” a moody trip hop beat as the perfect soundtrack for my moping.
- BECK-“Mixed Bizness” Beck made a banging R&B album in the late ’90s and if I was going to make you a mix, I would definitely want you to know that I know that.
- ANI DIFRANCO-“Swan Dive” Irby got her first tattoo as an homage to Ani–on her sternum.
- CRYSTAL WATERS-“Makin’ Happy” [This is the first song I have no idea about]. It’s house music.
- PJ HARVEY-“Ecstasy” Polly Jean thrashing on her guitar while caterwauling about sex in this super-raw way seriously cracked something open inside my most shame-filled places
- FIONA APPLE-“On the Bound” Fiona has exactly zero bad songs. The urgency with which she growls “you’re all I need” is so visceral and great.
- BLACK STAR-“Brown Skin Lady” She loved West coast rappers because the music was aggressive.
- BJORK-“It’s Oh So Quiet” “The video for this is maybe the most impactful thing I watched during my years as a sensitive teen”
- MARY J. BLIGE-“The Love I Never Had” this song is scream-singing your sorrows in the car on the highway.”
- THE ROOTS-“You Got Me” (The live version from The Roots Come Alive, duh). Jill Scott’s voice on this is amazing.
- RADIOHEAD-“No Surprises” “I don’t know what I was doing before OK Computer found its way into my life. Every single song is the best song I’ve ever heard.”
Love and Marriage
She got married and now knows everything about relationships. This was my favorite piece in the book. Very funny stuff. She answers some questions with great responses like
- What does “get along perfectly” mean if there’s a big glaring blockade like “I want to get married and he doesn’t” in the way.
- I also liked this Q&A why won’t wife have sex with me in th ehsower? Probably because she values having intact front teeth.
Are You Familiar with My Work?
The punchline of this essay was very funny–she assumes a waiter knows who she is–in front of someone else.
Hysterical!
This is a genuinely horrifying essay about Irby’s totally wack menstrual cycle. Much sympathy to her.
Lesbian Bed Death
This is a list of statements that begin with “Sure, sex is fun, but…” Some are funny. Some are just weird.
Sure sex is fun but have you ever had toilet paper brand loyalty?
What the hell does that mean?
Body Negativity
A detailed account of what she does and does not do to each part of her body as part of a daily routine. It’s an entire essay that revels in TMI.
Country Crock
I’m fairly fascinated by this essay in which Irby moves from Chicago to rural Michigan. Compromise for her marriage meant “giving up everything I ever loved.” Rural Michigan sounds like a nightmare in general, but for a black lesbian? Hoo boy. Why would they ever move there? That is never stated.
A Guide to Simple Home Repairs
This is another list full of rhetorical (or not) questions. Some are ones I myself have asked. Others are just weird “What do gutters do?” In between the listed items are some anecdotes about her living arrangements over the years and how she was alway in apartments and never had to do any maintenance.
We Almost Got a Fucking Dog
They didn’t.
Detachment Parenting
“I jump away from children the way most people jump back from a hot stove.” There’s some real humor in here, but I kept thinking–what happens when her wife and her wife’s children read this.
Season 1, Episode 1
This was a very funny and informative essay. Abbi Jacobesen wrote to Irby with the intention of creating a TV show form her first book. Irby hadn’t seen much of Broad City and didn’t know who she was. But they finally got together and the essay shows the process of pitching a TV show to executives. I guess it never materialized?
Hollywood Summer
This essay was also interesting because she was hired to write an episode of Shrill, a show that we’ve been meaning to watch. After reading this I want to watch it morer. It was a fun look at what it’s like to be feted as a celebrity writer in Hollywood.
$$$
Even if you sell a book, it doesn’t mean you’re rich. Back off bitches.
Hello, 911?
Much like the Lesbian Bed Death essay, each one of these starts with the same phrase. In this case, “Hello, 911?” And much like that essay, some of these scenarios are funny but most are just weird. “Hello, 911? My friend just left me a voice mail.” What? Although I did enjoy “Hello, 911 I HAVE TO MERGE.”
An Extremely Specific Guide to Publishing a Book
This is the FAQ essay of how she got her first book published. In this essay she goes on and on about how lazy she is and she still managed to get a book done. I’m not sure if that’s inspirational or not.
I don’t know if I didn’t enjoy this as much as I wanted to because i’m not the target audience. But I am a very sympathetic audience. And, like with so many things that I’ve read that claim to be hilarious “Spit out your beverage funny” according to Jia Tolentino, there are many essays in here that are decidedly not funny.
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