OK, at some point in life, we need to talk about Ludacris…  I kid, I kid.  Nobody needs to talk about Luda, and that is as it should be.  Look at this fucking video.  This is an unserious and inconsequential human being, whose celebrity shelf life was only extended by way of a film franchise that got perverse about maintaining the cumulative cast for as long as possible.  I still doubt we will see him again in Ten Fast Ten Furious.  The Luda Era is over.

I have frequently lacked TV or radio access for the current era of music, and missed out on big songs.  I had literally never heard this shit until years after it had its day.  I was working in the electronics section at malwart, with a new young man in charge of the department.  He was chubby with long dark hair and a full beard, thick black framed glasses to match.  Looked Oregonian.  My kinda guy.  Anyway, in an odd moment he just sang a bit of the chorus, and I was deeply amused.

Look at this silly young white man working a demeaning job for modest pay.  He has no hoes, regardless of area code.  He’s just amusing us with recitation of a silly song from when he was in late high school.  And I dig it.  This is a silly little song.  Probably too catchy for me to listen more than a few times per decade, or it’ll RFKjr my brains out.

Still, let us behold.  Let us listen.  Let us evaluate its merits.

Area Codes is a song about having hoes in various far-flung places.  Luda announces his intention to elaborate on this in the opening lyrics.  I’m worldwide, he says, not merely a local legend.  Good for him.  The women he’s involved with are all professionals tho.  Why is that?  I suppose he prefers NSA relationships.  Perhaps he’s aromantic, or is too afraid of rejection to approach women who would not say yes for money.  That’s valid.

He is a hip hop jester, mugging and flopping around lazily.  He couldn’t hack it as a stand-up comedian, but put music to his jokes, and it just might work.  In a song by West Side Connection, Ice Cube once said, “You know that it’s a hit if it’s got Nate Dogg singin’ on it,” and that holds true here as well.  It was a good time to be Ludacris, when this song came out.  Popular friends, ladies with numbers on their swimming apparel.  All was right with the universe.

My favorite thing about the song is the ho jokes.  But he makes so few of them!  I decided to rectify that with the rest of this post…

You thought this song was over?  We can keep things hoin’
Some birds and bees ho-ver, to keep ho-ney flowin’
Gotta garden hoe too
She grow a lotta ho-neydew
Whore-sradish for my hotdog
3-1-2 famous kielbasa
Payin for sausage or paying for cha-cha
4-1-5 pan-sexin’ on professionals
5-0-4 when i sex in confessionals
So ho’s your day been? Ho’s your main men?
I stay up in the ho-tel, service the 3-10
3-1-2, 3-1-3
Are you the ho or is it me?
I’m a john like They Might be Giants
Hookers should call me a number one client

7-1-8, 9-1-7, I died in Brooklyn and went to ho heaven
(the nate dogg impersonator begins)
I’ve got hoes, I’ve got hoes…

(me again)
On payin’ for love I am w-ho-lly reliant
Sell my ass to pay for more, deadly but silent
3-6-0, 4-2-5
They caught Ridgway so I’m still alive*
My hookers rule ass on fool serial killers
After we kill ’em we drink an ice cold Miller
5-0-9, 2-5-3
We ran out of codes and added 5-6-F’whore
Forgot my w-ho-le premise and fell into parody
Can you sing this to the music or am I just fooling me?
I hook like crochet to dirty old gays
Hook line and sinker makin’ em pay
Ho did it come to this, look at myself in a mirror
Trowel on the makeup and the image gets clearer
I’m Scorpion in Whore-tal Kombat
Get over here boy and be my mack, biatch.

(fake nate)
Is it ’cause I needed money to get by?
Is it ’cause I earned my degree at DeVry?
Is it ’cause they like my badonkadonk?
Is it ’cause they like to sunk my conk?
Whatever it is, they love it and they just won’t let me be
I handles my biz, don’t rush me, just relax and pay my fee
Whenever you call, I come runnin’
2-1-2 or 2-1-3
You know I’m a call girl, got you cummin’
But the sexing ain’t for free
I’m a ho, I’m a ho
In different area codes…

(me again)
I’m a ho
(a bunch of numbers here)
I hoes in different area codes, know that
W-ho-le Bible Belt, giving them welts
BDSM like Rihanna, Is it too late to plead the fifth ya honor?
Still won’t do biz at the rethuglican convention
A pound of cure saved by an ounce of prevention
Not sayin’ they got HIV
Just their politics and my thrussy disagree
I hoes to the left and hoes to the right
w-Ho wants to get it dirt cheap tonight?
I’m tragic like the love of Amlet and Hophelia
Played in the TV movie by Bonnie Bedelia
They say Die Hard is a christmas movie
This ho-ho-ho would have to agree
Whores-scorin’-whore years ago
Our whorefathers brought forth a ho nation
Conceived out of wedlock and dedicated to proposition
Me for $17.76, I’m the cheapest kick on Route Sixty-Tricks
Never want m-whore than a job on my back
Even tho I don’t need to pay for the crack
Ho-ly shit what a waste of time
But just bein a ho shouldn’t be no crime
Cuz I’m a ho and that’s a fact
Like Agnes Agatha Jermaine and Jack
R-I-P to Biz Markie
He wouldn’t ho rap with the likes of me
It’s hOkay I ain’t one to hate
And while I’m at it R-I-P Nate
Why these rap guys gotta die
Im-Ho-tep in the pyramid with a thousand guys
Ho boy it’s time to go, this rap went too long
Hookering lyrics for a prostitution song
Upload ho.txt, submit, and press send.
And like my big booty you know it’s The End.

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*hashtag noPJ