A good argument can be made that “Parents Just Don’t Understand” has less street cred than any other rap song in history. Aside from the mention of Adidas there’s nothing remotely authentically embedded in hip-hop culture here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW3PFC86UNI&feature=share

It’s funny, actually - and not in the way that Will Smith and The Other Guy Who Really, Really Wishes He Had Will Smith’s Career meant it to be - in that all the big hip-hop memes are represented here, at least on paper: expensive cars, shoe brands, girls, the cops, violence, clothing as a status symbol - it’s all here. None if it in any way that has anything in common with how rap that’s born in street culture represents that stuff, though. “Fuck tha Police” is “I don’t have a license but I drive very well, officer,” for instance. ” So this got me to wondering: is there a hip-hop track out there with less cred than this one? There are a number of worthy candidates to add to this debate, but I think we’ve got to exclude Kish’s “I Rhyme the World in 80 Days” and Organized Rhyme’s “Check the O.R.,” since these guys are a) white and b) Canadian. One of those is fine, but two and they shouldn’t be in this conversation to begin with. And the pure, one-off novelty raps don’t count, either, so keep your Tag Teams and MC Skat Cats to yourself (please) and while Wham!’s “Wham! Rap” may be the funniest song of all time, it’s similarly disqualified. I’d be tempted to say LFO’s “Summer Girls,” but somehow they aren’t a hip-hop band to me. It’s terrible, and I’m pretty certain that I’m more hardcore than the members of that band, but still. As ridiculous as it is to say this, I think that even “Ice Ice Baby,” the ne plus ultra of white boy rapping, is better than this. At least Vanilla Ice made some noise about 8 balls and Glock 9s and didn’t seem to confuse the two. (Math!) Also, when he mentioned the car we was rolling in, it didn’t belong to his parents. Similarly, Snow’s “Informer” seems to be steeped in authentic gangsta/rasta culture, and Snow’s backstory involved some sort of criminal activity. Even Marky Mark came off as tougher than The Fresh Prince. Although, if in 1991, you had told me that these two guys were going to be amongst the most successful movie stars on the planet, I would have told you you’re wack.

So who else is in this debate?