Nuthin But a V Thang
I love Barbecue. I love Hip Hop. So, it’s only natural that I perform a hip-hop song about barbecue on live television, right? And best of all, I did so while paying homage to “The Doggfather” of rap.
This week, I spent a morning at Reo’s Ribs in SW Portland. The proprietor, Reo Vardano, not only smokes a mean rack of baby-backs, but he is also the uncle of hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg. When not running his restaurant, Reo works as Snoop’s personal chef, cooking for him on tours and video shoots. Reo has been all over the world with Snoop, and has some CRAZY stories (I’ll let him tell them to you).
Anyways, to spice things up for our Good Day Oregon visit, I decided to perform a musical tribute to Reo and his famous nephew. You can check it out by clicking on this link:
Joe V covers Snoop Dogg at Reo’s Ribs.
The internet is a crazy thing, because a few hours after that clip aired, I began receiving feedback from all over the country (in many cases from people that I don’t know). Apparently, someone shared the clip on facebook, then other people re-posted it and so on and so on. Why did so many people post it? I guess a nerdy news reporter doing a hardcore rap song about food isn’t an every day occurrence (unless Weird Al Yankovic works for a news station somewhere).
Because people have asked, this is how I came up with the song: I wrote the lyrics the night before and downloaded a karaoke version of “Nuthin’ But a G Thang”. Then I spent a lot of time trying to memorize the words that I wrote. Remembering the tempo and beat was no problem, because I basically grew up on Snoop and Dr. Dre’s music in the mid-90s. Seriously, I could probably perform “G Thang” backwards if I had to.
Still, I was really, really, nervous right before it was time to perform live (a secret that I didn’t share with Reo or anyone ahead of time). I never get nervous before liveshots, but in this case, there was a lot that could go wrong. In rap, if you screw up one verse, you can spend the next thirty seconds tripping over words and trying to play catch up. That would obviously make for a disastrous segment. Also, because I know the original (R-rated) lyrics so well, I was a little worried that I might slip up and say one of those words that you can’t say on TV. That could make for an even more disastrous segment, FCC fines, and a trip to the unemployment line.
Thankfully, my delivery was OK (despite one small stumble) and I’ve received a lot of very positive feedback. And no- I don’t know if Snoop has seen it or not. But, if the D-O-double G is reading this, just remember it’s a loving tribute to your music and your uncle’s food. And that, my dawgs, is fo shizzle.
