I hit the Googlewebs hard today with a question I was sure every third person on this overpopulated planet must be asking: Why is Afroman throwing shade at Ana Kasparian?
Let me rewind a bit: A couple days ago, Afroman, the poet of “Because I Got High” fame, released a music video for a song titled “The Liquor Store” (from his 2017 album, Cold Fro-T-5 and Two Frigg Fraggs). I watched the video today. It’s a couple grandad-looking dudes singing about drinking, selling drugs and having sex. It has some surprisingly filthy lyrics (for grandpa rap). That said, the only lyric that raised my eyebrow was this: “Hickory dickory dock, the girl from Young Turks was sucking my cock.”
Did Afroman just reference The Young Turks? My inner dialogue began. And what girl is he talking about? I thought that show was just a bunch of youngish, liberal dudes with dark sexual histories and big, capitalist dreams.
So to the furthest, darkest, most Dagobah-esque reaches of the Googlewebs I went; and, to you, fair reader, I offer the fruits of my cyberian wanderings: Three hypotheses re why Afroman is throwing shade at “the girl from Young Turks.”
1. He’s not throwing shade, he really wants to fuck her
The Young Turks (aka TYT) is a YouTube news show. At least I think that’s what it is. I don’t watch it. But I quickly learned that the seductress to whom our aged poet is presumably alluding is Anahit Misak “Ana” Kasparian. She’s been with TYT since 2007 and, besides being smart, educated, well-spoken, a journalist, a university lecturer, a TED Talker (okay, it was a TEDx, but still), etc., etc., is also pretty gosh darn pretty. So my first hypothesis for why Afroman is throwing shade is that he isn’t–he genuinely enjoys fantasizing about this particular beguiling beauty.
2. He’s nursing a grudge
Back in the practically prehistoric and–dare I say, Edenic–spring of 2015 (Ah the Pre-Trump era when we Americans had a sneaking suspicion that we were a doomed, lemming-like species of morons, but most of us were not quite sure just yet), Afroman punched the shit out of a woman who had, to his ire, appointed herself his backup dancer at a Mardi Gras concert in Bumfucknowhere, Mississippi. She was busting some white-girl moves that would make even Miley Cyrus cringe when the Langston Hughes of marijuana odes landed a punch so wide and wild that the only other time I’ve seen something like it was when Danielle Bregoli and Woah Vicky went at it outside a Forever 21.
Our favorite foul-mouthed grandpa was arrested, apologized to his victim via TMZ, plead guilty and went to anger management. Of course, there is always that slimmest, tiniest, most soupçon of a modicum of chances that a man who punched a woman in the face in front of a literal audience was not completely sincere in his apology, harboring in the most recessed of harbors of his heart a wee morsel of animosity for not only his dear, bruised dancing queen but also all who would defend her. Did I mention he went on to sing a song titled “Stay off the Stage,” over which his victim, Haley Byrd, successfully sued for libel?
One of Byrd’s defenders was none other than “the girl from Young Turks.” On February 20, 2015, Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur of TYT published a YouTube video commenting on Afroman’s woman-beating ways. Our Ana was particularly critical, rolling her eyes at his apology and systematically taking down his various excuses for his behavior (including that he wasn’t high and therefore not himself), saying, “It doesn’t frickin’ matter […] Your excuse is stupid.” Geez, Ana, retract those claws.
3. He doesn’t write his own lyrics
Okay, so I have no evidence of this. In fact, all evidence is to the contrary. In a 2013 interview with the Gainesville Sun, Joe Foreman (aka Afroman) stated very clearly how proud he is of his lyrics and rhymes. Also, according to the man himself, his very first rap song–as a young school lad–was a takedown of a girl who thought she was too good for him, very much in keeping with the lyric that occasioned this article. I offer this possibility only because the dude is pretty elderly so not really someone I would expect to have heard of The Young Turks. Maybe he borrowed the lyric from an obscure SoundCloud rapper. Probably not, but maybe.
In sum
Anyway, those are the three explanations I came up with after unexhaustively researching the matter. I’m leaning toward #2: I mean, dude already has a history of lashing out at women he feels have slighted him, so lashing out at our Ana over a 5 minute YouTube video is pretty on-brand. Maybe there’s a fourth explanation I didn’t think of, but I doubt it. Hey, Joe, if you’re reading this, lemme know if I’m wrong, but I really suspect you might be harboring some seriously deep-seated insecurity re women, and I recommend some serious soul-searching: You could start here.