Nineteen killed by abnormally stupid rap song
NINETEEN nightclub patrons have suffered simultaneous brain hemorrhages and twelve more have been injured after an incident in a Brisbane nightclub early on Sunday morning. The victims, eight of them teenagers and three of them sixteen-year-olds with fake IDs, suffered massive blood clots to their brains while listening to the new single from up-and-coming rapper “Flip Swizzle McGizzle”. The incident occurred, ironically, in the Panic Nightclub in Fortitude Valley, shortly after 2AM Sunday. 11 of the victims died from the aforementioned brain hemorrhages, and a further eight were stomped to death in the panic that ensued. The song in question, entitled Hood Rich, consists of Flip Swizzle rapping about his lifestyle and the vast amounts of money he has recently accumulated. Most of the damage occurred after the first verse of the song, which reads as follows:
Rollin’ on Twenties down the Vegas strip
Hummer H2 two thousand and six
Flash my grill when I step out the whip
Rims so shiny I can blind a bitch
Armani duds and my jheri curl's slick
So many jewels I could build me a sphinx
Prof. Ernesto De La Hoya of Queensland Health warns that, although rare, music has been known to cause brain injury. “According to our research on the Weinbach effect, music can affect a human brain much more effectively than human speech communication. The sound is more complex, and can therefore have a deeper effect on more levels of the brain. It is our belief that the catalyst for the brain damage, in this case, is the last line of the first verse “so many jewels I could build me a sphinx”. The use of the word “jewels” to sound like the word “Jews” is incredibly stupid, and it is our belief that this has overloaded the victim’s brains.”
The ability of a particular piece of music to actually damage the human brain is called the Weinbach effect. It was first researched by Oliver Weinbach in the 1970s, by making test subjects talk to particularly stupid people. After a short while of dealing with these peoples’ stupidity, the test subjects developed severe headaches and could not continue, the effect of the sometimes mild stupidity attacking the brains of the test subjects.
However, with a particularly stupid piece of music, there is not only the stupidity of the lyrics, but the added stupidity of someone having being paid for making the music, people paying to hear the music, and in some rare cases, people receiving awards for the music. That ‘triple whammy of stupid’ as it is known at the Weinbach Institute, suddenly overwhelms the victim’s brain, and oftentimes the result is a major stroke or death.
Reported cases of people suffering brain damage and death from music has been steadily increasing in recent years, with many of the offending songs coming from the rap and hip-hop genre. Three cases of mild strokes have been attributed to Black Eyed Peas hit ‘My Humps’, due mainly to the lyrics of the second verse.
Mix your milk with my cocoa puff
Milky, milky cocoa
Mix your milk with my cocoa puff
Milky, milky, right.
However a more concerning case has developed since Black Eyed Peas frontwoman Fergie has persued a solo career. Her debut single, London Bridge, caused nine cases of loss of consciousness and many cases of sudden onset migraine at the album launch earlier this year. Sudden onset migraine is a fairly mild symptom of the Weinbach effect, often attributed to producer Jazzy Pha, who insists on having his name mentioned at the start of the various tracks he produces.
Massive damages have been attributed to Grillz, a song released by rappers Nelly, Paul Wall, Ali and Gipp earlier this year. At least 1500 injuries and 125 deaths in Europe and the United States are confirmed to have been caused by the song, which concerns itself entirely with the shiny metal overlays of the rapper’s teeth, or as the song would have you call it, their ‘grillz’.
Got 30 down at the bottom, 30 more at the top
all invisible set in little ice cube blocks
If I could call it a drink, call it a smile on da rocks
If I could call out a price, let's say I call out a lot
A similar, smaller-scale effect has been caused by Dem Franchise Boys’ ‘Ridin Rimz’, which concerns itself with the shiny wheels of the rappers’ cars, which replace the standard wheels for a car.
Flip Swizzle McGizzle, real name Gunther Herschwicz, could not be contacted for comment. The launch of his debut album, Blinged up, has been delayed. The US Military is currently working on translating ‘hood rich’ into Arabic for deployment against insurgent cells in Iraq.