3 OH 3 – WANT

3 OH 3 – WANT

Imagine, if you will, a maxxed up Vauxhall Nova circulating your leafy suburban avenue. Your middle class, parental, eyes are popping out of their sockets. Your lovely, well bought up, university graduate offspring has gone and bought themselves the chav automobile couture of choice, because they tell you, gratuitously, in street slang (“Back it up, back it up, If you talkin’ shit to me, Smack it up, smack it up, If you act a bitch to me.” – I Can’t Do it Anymore) they clearly picked up in the ghetto of Cambridge, “It’s ironic aint it?”. You can see the Grandparents turning in their freshly made graves. And you, Guardian reading, well to do, pillar of matriarchy with new grown hernia, are not disappointed exactly (you’re way too liberal to disapprove of something as sacred as “free will”), but surprised that your sprog, graduating with a 2:1 in classical literature has become this “thing” that swerves round streets, bass thumping, sub woofer raging, in a piece of shit transportation; flanked by an oeuvre of underdressed hillbilly accomplices donned in the uniform of low slung jeans, with dirty underpants glaring ominously at you. You argue with them about their attire (because you’re clearly a reasonable, rational, educated human being). You stand, aghast, at what happened to your son – who was once human and responsible. Where the hell did you go wrong? Well, for starters, he’s in a band!

3 OH 3 are the boys who make parent’s cry when they escort their daughters home, and then stick their fingers into fifteen year old pies right, on the doorstep (“Cause I’m sipping on some gin, sip ,sipping on some Jack, slip 60 in her panties with my number on the back” – Punk Bitch); if you’re female, they’re the kind of “party” guys propping up the bar night after night, trying it on with any “ho” with a tube top and a sorority badge (“You can catch me on the speedtrain, Beeper in a three-way, Shinin’ with the gleam chain, And your honey givin’ me brain.” – Punk Bitch); they’re the guys that teenage boys, awkward and unsure of their own place in the world, want to be. In this world, they’re legends (“T-tell your boyfriend if he says he’s got beef, that I’m a vegetarian and I ain’t fucking scared of him!”- Don’t Trust Me).

The thing that distinguishes 3 OH 3 from every single bullshit crunk band in the entire universe is that they’re simply, in the words of Justice/ Uffie, TTHHEE PPAARRTTYY (“We datin’ mad models and poppin’ mad bottles tonight.” – Don’t Trust Me). And they don’t claim to be anything other than two fucked up dudes, looking to get laid (“Drinks are on the house, Whiskey’s on the rocks while your sister’s on my mouth,” – Richman). And the best thing? Neither of them are at all good looking. So if you’re a spotty, teenage, Front reading, wank machine, there’s hope for you yet. (“You know we always finish first place; that’s why we’re rappin in the first place” – Photofinish).

But back to the Vauxhall Nova, because the shizzz that’s banging outta those speakers is, surely, 3 OH 3. Take a big grasp of breath liberal parental units, because you won’t like what’s coming. To you it sounds like some form of abysmal two step shitty rap music (“Bang. Bang. Bang. Motherfucking street slang. I’m a hit you from the back and make you holla ‘til you pass out.” – Holler Til You Pass Out). To us, it’s the musical personification of a way of life. When hope is lost, the teen train wreck throw themselves, haphazardly, into a mismatched montage of excessive drinking, promiscuity, recreational substance abuse & general badass-ness (“These children learn from cigarette burns, fast cars, fast women and cheap drinks” – I’m Not Your Boyfriend Baby). There are probably strippers, and threesomes, and Chlamydia. There’s a reason you don’t talk to your kids anymore, because you really wouldn’t want to hear what they did last night (“If you’ve got a neat stash (give me half, give me half), And if you roll up on some cash (give me half, give me half), And if your momma’s in the back (give me half, give me half), And you know I got the bass bat, bass bat, bass bat.” – Holler Til You Pass Out)). See? We told you!

You know those wankers that throw bottles in your local park, beat the kids up for their dinner money to buy drugs? Oh don’t worry your son hasn’t turned into one of them, just yet. His post-modern tongue in cheek pastiche is simply vilifying these wankers on their own terrain. Hey may have “This shit on lock, Holla! Holla! At me if you on my block!” (Chokechain) and may claim that “If you be fucking with my city, then you fucking with my kin.” (Chokechain) but he’s just expressing himself. It’s funny in a way. Your son aint some hip hopping, popping, don’t stopping, badass biatch. He aint got beef, he probably aint remotely political these days. Whilst he’s talking the talk, he certainly aint walking the walk, meaning your Neanderthal little darling isn’t into gun crime, that gun he’s got “Cocked tight and  ready to blow” (Starstrukk), is simply his penis. CALM DOWN. He’s just shooting his sperm up into the crevices of your neighbours’ underage daughters (“Rich skanks filled up like a sperm bank” – Richman) at the local bar, at worst. Yeah, that gun crime is looking quite so bad now, is it?

The thing that 3 OH 3 do, so awesomely, is to set themselves up (“Just set them up, Just set them up to knock them down” – Starstrukk), whilst other “rappers” (for lack of a better word) just rep their shit (“Motherfuckers best believe it, That you fuckin’ with the best” – Chokechain)). 3 OH 3 may be, ostentatiously, enjoying the fruits of the party loins (musically of course) but beneath this party pastiche, there’s an underlying assumption, that there’s something, or someone, missing; a girl (“Coked up, her body’s all spun around, Oh yeah, yeah, she’s really done it, And seein’ her just isn’t something I can stomach.” – I Can’t Do it Alone); a girl that’s been pined over for a long time. It may not be a love song (“This ain’t a broken heart homie singin’ only ’cause he’s lonely, This ain’t a whiskey-drowned ballad, There ain’t nothing here that’s valid – I Can’t Do it Anymore), but you know there’s something missing: HER. And the reason for the party? She aint coming back (“And if I had something to say to you I’d whisper it softly, kiss you on your rosy lips and never let you off me, shiver on your roof and see your face lit by starlight, hold you through the night and watch that Colorado sunrise.” –  Colorado Sunrise). Problem is, parents, “These children learn from cigarette burns, fast cars, fast women, and cheap drinks.” , which is perhaps, horrifying for you, but nevertheless, pretty hilarious for those of us with our tongues placed firmly inside our post-modernist cheeks. See you on the other side…