Bradford Pearson

My Case For: Bubba Sparxxx's video for "Deliverance"

I didn’t want to write back-to-back “My Case For:” segments about specific songs, but this number is a true classic.

So let’s gets things right on the table: Bubba Sparxxx is not a good rapper. He’s not a mediocre rapper with decent personality (Busta Rhymes), or even a respectable lyricist with boring beats (early Aesop Rock). He’s simply not that good.

But this video, excuse me this POST-MODERN MASTERPIECE, completely wipes the slate clean for, as his momma calls him, Warren Anderson Mathis.

First of all it’s set in, like, the 1920s or something, which sort-of worked in the incredibly over-the-top video for the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight.”

Secondly, it features the Three G’s every good rap video should: girls, guns, and God.

After Bubba and his crew escape from prison for some untold crime (presumably breaking his contract with Beat Club Records) he somehow shacks up a beautiful blond in the middle of a marsh. Seemingly unlikely for a bald white man with “New South” tattooed on his forearms, Bubba pulls it off with convincing élan.

The whole video, Bubba and his pals are being chased through the woods by some fellas toting shotguns, pausing way too often to engage the audience in the next verse of the song. Seriously, Bubba, hit the bricks man, you don’t have all day.

By the end though, like every good rapper, he’s eventually brought his “Deliverance” by an old fashion Southern Baptist baptism. Awwwww.

Ok so the post-modern part. There is not one original idea in the entire video. Not. One. Everything from “O Brother Where Art Thou?” to Everlast’s video for “What It’s Like” to THE NAME OF THE FREAKING SONG. And you know what? The video’s better for it. Bubba couldn’t have come up something half as entertaining as this on his own, especially when Timbaland (pre-steroids, so still chunky) performs the worst possible imitation of Robert Johnson at the crossroads I’ve ever seen.


A few notes: My roommate Sean noticed the Everlast connection, not me, so I want to give him credit for that.

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Posted by Bradford Pearson at 3:59 PM