Despite the extravagant diamond pendant around Lil Jon’s neck that reads “Crunk Ain’t Dead,” Crunk is indeed dead. First it was buried beneath a heap of happy snap that drowned out rebellious voices like Pastor Troy’s. Then, the orderly step-dances stomped out the thrashing bodies possessed by sound.

And now this: Like “Bling” before it, Crunk has been officially officialized by Merriam-Webster, thereby granting otherwise serious-minded white folks license to get—gasp!—“Crunk.”
Last night, after announcing the latest additions to the standardized dictionary (Ginormous, and Sudoku were among them), CNN anchor Anderson Cooper tried to keep it together, making an honest grey-haired mistake thinking Crunk was Krump, the dance style explored by David LaChapelle in his documentary about a bunch of dancing clowns. “I thought Crunk was a form of dance in California,” Anderson said. (I give Anderson points for even being up on Chris Brown’s favorite pastime.) But guys like Cooper aren’t the reason why words disappear. Check Cooper’s shucking and jiving partner, who yucks it up alongside him.

“No, no, that’s where you’re wrong,” dude joked. “This morning I had a big bowl of crunk, with a little bit of milk and sugar.”

Anderson, later going in on the joke, asked viewers to send their “crunk ideas” so CNN can put your “best crunk on the air.”
Truth is, I’ve witnessed some pretty bad context usage for the word over the years. Of course, we can all agree that there is a certain dark, high-energy music called crunk that infects those who listen, and causes them to get crunk. But I’ve overheard folks call a pair of sneakers crunk, as in “Those kicks are crunk.” Or the store, which sells said “crunk” footwear, I’ve heard clumsily referred to as crunk. To this I say, Cooper and the new Crunk News Network gang are as good as any to participate in the murder of a word.

But this is how it all begins, or rather, ends. A perfectly good word, which already had a few questionable uses within the hip-hop community, gets booted up to the mainstream and before you know it, MC Karl Rove and crew are getting crunk in The White House.

Now, ain’t no sense in thinking this will be as critical as the “Getting Jiggy With It” abuse of language, or that it will rise to “dude, you got-dissed-hard” proportions. And there will always be the mainstays of crunk that’ll be live (for proof, peep Fresh of crunktastical).

Meanwhile, artists like David Banner, Three 6 Mafia, and Lil Jon will surely fight the good fight, albeit a losing one.

“Crunk is a word that’s been used in the South forever,” Lil Jon told USA Today writer Steve Jones in 2003. “We were the first ones to use it in a hook and tell people to Get crunk, we started calling ourselves a crunk group, so we kind of paved the way.”

And now this.

I guess there’s nothing left to do but have yourself a bowl of Crunk, with a lil milk and sugar, while sending Anderson Cooper and CNN your best “Crunk Ideas,” of which I am suddenly fresh out.

“Word on the street is 50’s not Jay/ and Cam better stay out his way” -50 Cent

< < Rewind < <

It was all good just a week ago.

Then the phone rang at Hot 97 where 50 Cent was being interviewed. It was the usual fairly fluffy, warm-and-fuzzy-type talk of midday radio until somebody answered the phone. On the other end? DipSet general Cam’Ron. (Well, actually it was Allen Grunblatt, Koch GM, but then it was Cam).

> >FF > >

“Yada, yada, yada, Koch is a graveyard,” says Fif, calmly. “Yada yada yada. But Jim Jones outsold Lloyd,” says Cam…

>Play >

And now this:

httpv://www.youtube.com/v/_poeloXyDmA

Ain’t 50’s best dis track for sure (that would be “Not Rich, Still Lying” where he rapped as The Game), but he cuts deep when he runs his jibbs at the end: “Computers computin’/ Boogie-de-bootin!?” He demotes Cam to soldier and promotes Jim Jones to boss. That’s gotta hurt. Especially since Jim Jones violated rule #1 of Robert Green’s “48 Laws of Power”* with “We Fly High,” perhaps the DipSet’s biggest record ever.

Then somehow, Jay gets caught in the crossfire (see above quote). Seems like 50 has been reading is “Art of War” (yep, Sun Tzu’s a G-Unit soldier), learning to divide and conquer. Cam, judging by his maniacal laughter at the end of that phone call, has some insecurity with his present position. And possibly, with Jim’s. What led to the fall of the Roc-A-Fella dynasty can certainly befall the DipSet if 50 can stay inside Cam’s head. You’d think Cam would know better.

But hip-hop doesn’t seem to learn from its past. Big’s and Pac’s deaths are often used as some get-the-crowd-hyped tribute. And then an artist goes home to their big house and makes a record like “Funeral Music,” where heavy fire-power can be seen blasting off a few rounds. Surely there will be a proper Cam response before I can press send on this thing. Jay-Z will have plotted his next move (from some great beach chair, rocking his Gucci sandals and his linen shorts, no doubt). Meanwhile, Ja Rule, whose career was bodied some time ago, will be somewhere planning a comeback in the midst of the chaos. And by next week, we’ll all be saying, It was all good just a week ago.

(*Rule #1: Never outshine your master.)