The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #195

#195: "What's Your Fantasy" (2000) - Ludacris & Shawna

The funniest serious rapper in the game, Ludacris here--and this, if not quite revolutionary, is still pretty rare--sees his woman as his equal, vowing to pleasure his woman just as she pleasures him, and he uses his wit, his wild imagination, and his gift for meter to detail about sixty-nine (or so) different sexual fantasies and positions and settings (all of which rhyme, of course, and that takes some doing), and he makes it all sound exciting and fun, not lewd and crude (even though a cursory perusing of the lyrics may lead one to this latter presumption).

The woman, Shawna, goes along with it, but verbally she's completely overwhelmed. 'Cris's cadence here is masterful--heck, he doesn't even need the backbeat nor the synths (though I do like the electric typewriter plinks) to rock this joint. And his voice is as lacking in personality as his is full of it (take that phrase however you like), so much so that I wonder if 'Cris is fantasizing about this woman or just doing so to hear how far he can go himself, how creative he can be with his verse, and how much energy he can put into a four-minute pop song--and it's so much more than Shawna puts out (ahem), that I'm sure he'll be done with her pretty soon. Wonder if the next one will oblige him, or if 'Cris will be left to be the master of his domain.