Remember 'Hot In Herre', Nelly's liquid, lascivious sex-rap from last year that got covered by everyone from Coldplay to Beck? Chingy certainly does, because his fabulous debut single is virtually the same song. Like Nelly, Chingy comes from St Louis, Missouri, and sounds as if he spends as much time drooling as he does rapping. In fact, he's even toured the states with Nelly's little brother St Lunatic, and you wouldn't put it past him to wear a band-aid on his cheek to complete the homage. Chingy's current mentor, though, is the estimable [a][/a], who's taken time off from his own sauce-doused hip-hop to build a pretty handy roster for his Disturbing Tha Peace label.
Ok, so admittedly not much really happens during 'Right Thurr'. A farting synth is programmed to loop round and round by producers Trak Starz (who are basically the Happy Shopper Neptunes). Chingy, meanwhile, has little more important to share with us besides the fact that some women have the audacity to walk past him looking pretty. "I can see her thong a l'il bit," he gurns, before optimistically noting, "20 years old – you legal.".
Yet there's something utterly irresistible about this dumb, perfect pop single. Maybe it's that hypnotic, relentless groove which sounds like it could go on forever. Or maybe it's Chingy himself, and the way his Southern drawl stretches "Thurr" (as in there) and "Hurr" (as in hair) into huge and preposterous new words. It's all terribly Dirty South, as you'd imagine, but Chingy's soft and compelling way with the letter 'r' is weirdly Devonian, too. Which isn't something you can say about most potty-mouthed hip-hop prodigies these days. Nice wurrk.
John Mulvey
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