I’ve officially lived long enough to hear some Mindful Lyrics in MTVland:

(Rihanna):
You’re gonna be a shining star, fancy clothes, fancy car-ars.
And then you’ll see, you’re gonna go far.
Cause everyone knows, who you are-are.
So live your life, ay ay ay.
Instead of chasing that paper.
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
Ain’t got no time for no haters.
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
No telling where it’ll take you.
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
Cause I’m a paper chaser.
Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh)
Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh)

(T.I.):
Nevermind what haters say, ignore them ’til they fade away.
Amazing they ungreat for after all the game I gave away.
Safe to say I paved the way, for you cats to get paid today.
You still be wasting days away, nah had I never saved the day.
Consider them my protégé, how much I think they should pay.
Instead of being gracious, they violated and made you wait.
I never been a hater still I love them in a crazy way.
Some say they so yay and no they couldn’t work on Labor day.
It aint that they black or white, their hands of area in shades of grey.
I’m West side anyway, even if I left the day it stay da way.
Some move away to make a way not move away cause they afraid.
I’ll go back to the hood and all you ever did was hate away.
I pray for patience but they make me want to melt their face away.
Like I once made them scream, now I could make them plead their case away.
Been thuggin’ all my life, can’t say I don’t deserve to take a break.
If you ever see me catch a case, and watch my future fade away.

(Rihanna):
You’re gonna be a shining star, fancy clothes, fancy car-ars.
And then you’ll see, you’re gonna go far.
Cause everyone knows, who you are-are.
So live your life, ay ay ay.
Instead of chasing that paper.
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
Ain’t got no time for no haters
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
No telling where it’ll take you.
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
Cause I’m a paper chaser.
Just living my life.

(T.I.):
I’m the opposite of moderate, immaculately polished with the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid.
Allergic to the counterfeit, impartial to the politics.
Articulate but still would grab a nigga by the collar quick.
Whoever had problems with their record sales just holla ‘tip.
If that don’t work and all else fails, then turn around and follow ‘tip.
I got love for the game but ay I’m not in love with all of it.
I do without the fame and the rappers nowadays are comedy.
The hootin’ and the hollerin’, back and forth with the argueing.
Where you from, who you know, what you make and what kind of car you in.
Seems as though you lost sight of whats important with the positive.
And checks until your bank account, and you up out of poverty.
Your values is a disarrayed, prioritized are horribly.
Unhappy with the riches cause you piss poor morraly.
Ignoring all prior advice and fore warning.
And we might be full of ourselves all of a sudden aren’t we?

(Rihanna):
You’re gonna be a shining star, fancy clothes, fancy car-ars.
And then you’ll see, you’re gonna go far.
Cause everyone knows, who you are-are.
So live your life, ay ay ay.
Instead of chasing that paper.
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
Ain’t got no time for no haters
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
No telling where it’ll take you.
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
Cause I’m a paper chaser.
Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh)
Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh)

So live your life.

Sorry for MTV’s super-annoying video player, I have a super-fast player and I it’s taken 20 tries to get it to load so I can embed it for you below, and they won’t let it play on YouTube (MTV, owned by Viacom, apparently isn’t hip to the new facts of modern life: sharing in the digital age = traffic = good for everyone. It’s a seminal change in property culture, where sharing one’s content is actually good for you—worth a post in and of itself. Anyway, I traded a buddy for a big TV a few months back so I could watch Planet Green, the first eco TV channel. And, of course, I’ve wound up watching some Mad Men, some Conan O’Brien, some Jon Stewart. One thing I haven’t watched at all is MTV, which when I was a kid was the hippest, truly coolest thing going. It also had something to do with music. Well now it’s all reality TV, and is more about the sorority girls and frat boys ridiculed in Animal House than the real kids that populate planet America.

Then, a few nights back, surfing my way to greener pastures, I came across the VMA awards and Rihanna, who’s famous to most but unknown to this TVless old man (except when Paris said she’d make a good VP pick)…well Rihanna pops out of some contraption and starts singing over the original viral web hit, which you can see at the very bottom. This guy, in this viral web video, is fat and nerdy…and having the time of his life, as we all do when we’re alone, and singing…and he’s singing to some unheard of Eastern European hit…that, bc of this video, which has 25 million views from various video postings on YouTube alone (let alone all the other sites in the world), is now mainstream enough that TI and Rihanna are sampling it.

Another version of above song, not at MTV awards:

And the original viral video, Numa Numa: