808 Drum? Really???

"the 808 kick drum makes the girlies get dumb" says Sir Mix-A-Lot
"nothing sounds quite like an 8o8" replies the Beasty Boys
oh but wait, Kesha has something to say...
"Do I make your heart beat like an 808 drum"...



Kesha Kesha Kesha.... what the heck are you talking about? Do you even know what an 808 is? Are you hitting it with sticks to make drum sounds? Lets learn a little before analyzing Kesha's lyrics.

An 808 (pronounced "Eight O eight) is slang for the Roland TR-808 programmable drum machine. It is NOT a drum! unless you hit it with a mallet (Not malloc... ha). It gained popularity due to its sweet analog kick drum sound (I actually like the clapping sound an awful lot too).

Mix-A-Lot makes a very direct reference to the feature that made the 808 popular with hip hop artists in the 80s, the Kick Drum. The Beastie Boys used the 808 in most (if not all of) license to Ill, and though they have the kick drum playing during that part of the song, they give props to the whole machine. Kesha on the other hand disrespects the 808 by obviously adding the word drum into the song because the Lyrics wouldn't work without it. She is clearly making a statement that implies "if you have only 4 syllables in a haiku, go ahead and throw the word 'Drum' on the end"

Music in the air
Filling my heart with rhythm
Silence is dull drum

Ya see how that somehow changes the meaning? But lets give her some credit. She obviously implies the Kick drum feature of the 808, so lets tear that apart. "Do I make your heart beat like an 808 Drum"... is this a good thing??? Does she not know that the 808 is commonly used in hip hop? This isn't rock music, the beat doesn't happen every two counts, its usually something like 1,5,6 or something even more funky. If this guys heart is beating like an 808, call the doctor, because somethings seriously wrong, he'll probably need to be shocked back to normal. Or maybe she isn't talking about the Kick, maybe she is referencing the hi hat, thats gonna be something like 4 beats a second usually, putting this guy at 240 BPM, way over the suggested maximum heart rate of 200 for a healthy 20 year old male.

I know that the common response is "this is ART, and she can do whatever she wants", but hopefully the pain this song causes me helps everyone learn a little more about the wonders of the Roland 808...