Method Man & Mary J Blige - You’re All I Need to Get By (Razor Sharp Mix)

Do: speak from your heart, not Marvin Gaye’s

If you want to blame someone for all the clichés, blame Motown. Every empty love song of the eighties nicked lyrics wholesale from sixties soul. Words that meant something when screamed desperately by Otis Redding were reduced to banalities by George Michael twenty years later. Thank god for these two, with their tale of ghetto love. Finally a song that had the bollocks to say I love you from the heart. Never before had profanity been so damn romantic. Not dirty. Not sleazy. Just romantic. Essentially it’s the wedding vow ‘for richer, for poorer’ relocated to the ghetto. This isn’t your standard rapper fantasy of wishing for the big time so you can be adorned in bitches. This is two people in love looking forward to sharing that dream together.

Just be there for me and I’ma make sure we
Be livin’ in the fuckin’ lap of luxury
I’m realizing that you didn’t have to fuck wit me
But you did, now I’m going all out kid
And I got mad love to give, you my nigga

Badly Drawn Boy - Once Around the Block

Do: be charming

Whereas the last song was romance between two people in love, this is from the start of a relationship—it’s the language of love effortlessly spilling out from someone chasing the object of their desire. Whether it’s love at first sight or simply infatuation is irrelevant because the emotions employed are the same. Of course it’s not just the words, it’s the sweetness of Damon Gough’s voice—even if the song were about stalking, he would still sound utterly harmless. As I recall, the promo director must have picked up on the same quality since the video for the song consisted of two awkward teenagers driving around smiling at each other, before getting attached to each other by their braces during their clinch at the end. Romance of the gormlessly innocent variety.

50 Cent - Candy Shop

Don’t: sound like a sex pest

Everyone has a friend that can get away with saying anything they want just because they’re so charming. Likewise there are artists who get away with saying the sleaziest shit imaginable and you’d still give them your mother’s phone number. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking mum, but this Prince guy sounds like he’ll show you a good time, just go and have fun, I’ll feed the cats.” 50 Cent, however, is not one of those artists. Six feet of pure lumbering idiot, his attempt at seduction makes Jeffrey Dahmer sound like Barry White.

I’ll let you lick the lollypop
Go ‘head girl, don’t you stop

On the beach or in the park, it’s whatever you into
Got the magic stick, I’m the love doctor

Since the dawn of time various men have tried to master the art of seduction through the arts as an elaborate means of drawing attention away from the fact that they are sporting erections. A lot of effort has gone into convincing the female sex that there is something altogether less biological at work than a simple mating call. This is why none of Shakespeare’s sonnets start with the line “Basically I want to stick this into that—how doth that grab you, fair maiden?”

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