#72

#72. A$AP Rocky (feat Drake, 2 Chainz & Kendrick Lamar) - F**kin' Problems (#79, 2013)

14th of 2013

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There's a famous audio file that's been circling around on the internet for several decades now, the recording is older than I am, I believe. It's a two and a half minute skit of a man talking about the word 'f**k' ad nauseum. He goes on about the word's versatility. The way it can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or how it can be used to cover a gamut of emotions as well. It's all largely just an excuse to say 'f**k' over and over again, while being juxtaposed by the decision to play part of Vivaldi's famed violin concerti "The Four Seasons" underneath it. I suspect I came across it as a wave of internet virality in the very early days of YouTube, but the main reason I think about it is because it used to get played infrequently on triple j during Super Request. Just an evergreen bit of fun to put on the radio.

The strange thing about it all is that I could never figure out what the 'song' was actually called. Back when JPlay was still a thing, I tried to find it at some point to no avail. Subsequently, I had no idea where it came from. It may have been something that got played on triple j constantly a few years back and I was just coming in at the tail end. The truth is that it's one of the early remnants of perhaps misleading internet sharing. The recording was misattributed to more famous names in order to get it shared around, until the misconception just stuck. Part of why I got so curious is because if I were pressed for a name, my recollection was that it was a Monty Python bit, but that got increasingly hard to believe as I learnt more about the troupe's work and couldn't really imagine where it'd fit in. You'll also find it sometimes attributed to George Carlin which is more believable given his famous stand-up routine about curse words, but it also doesn't sound like him. In case you need more reason not to trust it, Google's AI search confidently said it was Richard Pryor. It's all a bit like how every comedic song that gets shared around always gets attributed to "Weird" Al Yankovic, despite them all being too crude for him.

The interesting answer to this is that the recording you're possibly familiar with was actually done by Jack Wagner. If you don't recognise that name, he was a long time employee of Disney. His voice is recognised by many as the voice of the PA system at Disneyland. His voice is prone to pop up elsewhere as a result of that, and I can't say for sure if I'm familiar with it in those contexts because all I hear in his voice now is that one skit. This wasn't really uncovered until around 2005, when the ever familiar skit was brought up specifically about trying to attribute it, and solved when someone who worked with Jack on the recording managed to chime in. The recording is actually a remake of what this person describes as 'the original crappy version (that I am positive no one here has EVER heard)', and it was given to them by the nephew of Bobby Cochran. Jack decided to record his own version with much better quality, better grammar, and his own decision to include Vivaldi. So that's the answer to the mystery of the skit that gave us the phrase 'f**k the f**king f**kers' in such a mature voice.

You're right, that does have next to nothing to do with this, and I was fully prepared to start this post like normal, but what better opportunity to provide some clarification on something that goes misunderstood pretty regularly. It's also very slightly pertinent here because "F**kin' Problems" operates on a partially similar level, which is that the word 'f**k' can be both used in both the sexual and the frustrated sense. 2 Chainz eloquently puts it when he says that his love of bad b*tches is a f**kin' problem, but that he also literally has a f**kin' problem because he likes to f**k. He'll never be the darling of the so-called "City Fathers", but he does internally justify the opportunity to re-use lyrics to reinforce the song's hook. On that level, it's pretty genius. It's the same 2 Chainz who brought us the lyric 'She got a big booty so I call her Big Booty'.

I would like to highlight 2 Chainz here because it's the only time he's ever made the Hottest 100 ever. He came close the year before, as "Mercy" with Kanye West was a near miss at #111. Admittedly he's the least memorable of the four on that song and gets tucked away at the back. Later on, he got even closer, courtesy of Chance The Rapper's "No Problem", which would have made for an amusing titular pairing from him if it made it. I'll admit that it took a while for me to warm to his particularly direct brand of bars, but in a world without regular 2 Chainz guest features for many years, absence has made the heart grow fonder. Just in general, I find him an interesting case because he didn't release his debut album until he was just about to turn 35. Like you wouldn't think he's only a few months younger than Kanye West. His southern drawl is key to making this whole song work.

This song has gained a new reputation that grows more noteworthy as time goes by. It's the last time that Drake & Kendrick Lamar ever appeared together on the same song. This is by the slimmest of margins because Kendrick released "good kid, m.A.A.d city" just two days before this, which has the song "Poetic Justice" on it. It's very loosely a collaboration this time. The music video gives off the impression that they were never even together in the same room and there isn't much of a throughline in their verses. Drake is generally the odd one out here who hasn't gotten the memo to be as utterly depraved as possible. He's better for it though and easily has the best verse here. I clearly just want as much Drake as possible here, because the music video actually changes the song slightly and has A$AP Rocky finish his segues into each verse, which sounds weird and I don't like it.

The other thing I don't necessarily like is some of what A$AP Rocky starts saying. I've called it out once but he really managed to get in here with song where he can drop a derogatory slur for lesbians and make the same joke about how he's able to get them to sleep with him. He is a sharp dresser for sure though, and I'll admit that the lyric 'Put the chrome to your dome, make you sweat like Keith' got a little bit funnier in 2025. He's just lucky to get carried by everything else around him this time around. Kendrick's verse is mostly just funny for the general juxtaposition. We really did not know what his career was going to be like when he was doing guest spots like this, or with The Lonely Island, or with Robin Thicke. It's interesting to see him invoke "Money Trees" with the Halle Berry line, as if it was already a classic and not just a song he dropped two days ago. There's only one word to describe that kind of hubris, beast.