The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #142

#142: "Slow Jamz" (2003) - Jamie Foxx, Kanye West, & Twista

I've been deejaying for over twenty years now, and I love spinning other people's records as much now as I did when I first started, but every now and then, certain members of the audience can make for a frustrating gig, especially when they decide to request songs that they--or their paramour--want to hear that either doesn't jibe with whatever mood I'm serving at the time or makes no dance sense whatsoever. Let me cite a few memorable moments from the request line:

• A young man asked me to play Hank Williams, Jr.'s "Women I've Never Had" and letting him introduce the song by saying on the mic "This one goes out to all you [women] I ain't [loved] yet. Well...yo' time is comin'!"
• A six-foot-seven behemoth with a John Deer mesh cap told me to "quit playing that [African-American] [excrement] and start playing some [expletive] Skynyrd," or he was going to "beat my [expletive] [derriere]"
• A young woman asked me to "start playing some [African-American] [excrement] and quit playing that [Caucasian] mess 'cause it's making my sides hurt laughing at them [Caucasians] thinking they can dance."
• As I was playing Ciara & Missy Elliot's "One, Two Step" at a junior high dance in the spring of 2005, a girl in her early teens asked me, "Sir, uh, do you think you could play some newer music, 'cause we don't like to hear old stuff like that anymore." That song "One, Two Step" had been released not quite six months prior.
• Same junior high dance, a boy in his early teens asked me, "Hey...can you play 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or 'In the End?'" I told him I could, and he said, "Really! Aww, man, thanks! Me and my friends wanna slam dance and get all bloody and hurt each other!"
• About five years ago at a company orientation for employees who were mostly teenagers, the head honcho told me three separate times--before I ever started playing--not to play any "any urban songs, any hip-hop songs, any rap songs, any new R&B song, any new hard rock songs, any heavy metal songs, or any song with lyrics that glorified, mentioned, or even suggested sex, making out, body parts, violence, rebellion, or non-conformity." He first dropped this on me about thirty minutes before I was to start playing. I asked him what he wanted me to play, and he said, "Play some Beach Boys. Everybody likes them, right? Just don't play anything that anybody would ever find offensive, and make sure the music's all peppy and upbeat and fun...you know, stuff these kids like." About three-fourths of the way through the program, the orientation script called for me to play a song while the head honcho entered. I asked the head honcho if he was sure he wanted me to play that song, and he said, "It's in the script, isn't it?" and walked away. Well, when the time came, I played it. The song: "Back That Ass Up."
• At a wedding reception about fifteen years (or so) ago, a group of about four or five college kids asked me to play the B-52's "Channel Z." I asked them why that B-52's song, and one of the guys said, "Play it for the Earth! Play it for the people! Dedicate it to the Earth!" And I did.
• A man twenty-five years my senior wanted to hear some Percy Sledge because "that's good slide yo'self up against that [woman] music."

That last request is indicative of the most common type of request I get from older (meaning post-college and/or married) men: they want to hear a love song so that they can rub on their women on the dance floor...and they want to do this because they know that slow dancing in public is a precursor to horizontal dancing in private. Often, the love songs are the only songs that will lure men to the dance floor. Even the most stolid and stoic of men will aquiesce to a slow song, for I believe intrinsically all men know that women want to be held in public (if the venue is acceptable).

Now, women like to have their game trophies as well as men, and the women want all the other women to see it, to see them dancing with that man, because this dancing signifies a singular dedication to that woman, meaning that--at least for the course of one song--no other woman can have him. He's hers. She's captured him, and she wants all the other women to see it. Van Morrison said that all the girls dress up for each other, and he was right, but all the girls also dance with their men for each other, too. The man's just there. He holds no special place other than that of object. He's a placeholder, and it's her place.

It's her place, though, that the man wants to go after the dance is over, and if that man is smart, then he'll go up to the DJ and request some special songs, songs that have the ability to transform the man from object to subject because the songs' singers can make those songs personal, where the voice and presence transcend the lyric, where--if the sound system and recording are of high quality and the volume loud enough--the singers' vocal prowess and style can resonate at such a level that the walls of inhibition crumble so that--and I know this is going to sound like malarky (if it doesn't already), but it's true--both dancers stand revealed as individuals to themselves and one another, and this personal revelation leads to intimacy, on the dance floor and maybe beyond. Someone once stated that all great art is personal, and it is, but it can also be communal as well.

Kanye West and Jamie Foxx understand this. In "Slow Jamz," they present us with a woman who'll love her man, but only if he--or the DJ--plays records by a lauded list of soul singers. They oblige, and form follows function: they name drop a handful of great balladeers, and the duo make a record worthy of the best of Marvin Gaye or Luther Vandross or RFTW. West keeps the music slow and steadily pulsing, giving us atmosphere as aphrodisiac; and Foxx uses his velvet vocals for sensual seduction. The party starts swinging, the couple start dancing, and he's hers, and all the gals see it, and West's and Foxx's song is so good at what it does that she lets him take her home, and as long as the music plays, then she'll play, too.

Where does Twista come in during all of this? In the bedroom. Not all the action--dance floor or boudoir--can be a slow jam. Someone's got to up the tempo at some point. Your request for another slow song so you can grab your man will have to wait for a little while, m'am. I take all requests, yeah, but I only play some, but don't worry. Yo' time is comin'.