It's all about the Bordens

"Rap is a gimmick, but I'm for the hip-hop, the culture" (Method Man)

   Today while I was at work I realized that Canadian money, on top of being exceptionally colourful, is also unfortunately difficult to write rap lyrics for. The names of Laurier, MacDonald, Borden and Mackenzie do not rhyme easily with other words to create the fast flowing lyrical melodies that hip hop or rap require. 

'Yo yo yo leader of Canada during a period of rapid industrialization and prosperity in the HOUSE'

   Maybe this is why neither of these scenes really appeared to take hold with Canadian artists. 

Inspired by the song ‘It’s all about the Benjamin’s’ which features lyrics describing how life is all about how many hundred dollar bills you may have in your possession at any one time and how it makes you better than everyone else, I set out to investigate how money features in hip hop music. Mind you, I only really know about the song of Benjamin’s because Weird Al has a catchy parody of the song mining a computer vein of the early 2000’s. In my extremely limited sample size of like three songs, I discovered that most of the time money is referred to by the faces they display, generally referring to American currency and their tendency to feature the founding fathers.

Look at that guy, he just knows that 225 years later we're still dropping phat beats about him

   In Canada the situation is a little different, mainly because our money features a succession of 19^th and 20^th century prime ministers plus the Queen. For some reason, even though they all trace their lineage back to England (for the most part) the Canadian names don’t roll off the tongue as easily.  Borden, MacDonald, Mackenzie, Laurier and the Queen do not carry the same weight as Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson. Even the British have some pretty awesome character names on their banknotes: Elizabeth Fry, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, John Houblon and Matthew Bolton. All their names are fairly rappable. You could totally be flashing some Smith’s with your Smith and Wesson, or being so fly with their Elizabeth Fry’s. Either way, the same can not be said for the dour Laurier staring at you from his blue tinted $5 prison.

Just throw some Oakleys and a backwards facing ball cap and you've got yourself a certified thug

   As Canadians we obviously need to band together and encourage our elected politicians to take on more rappable names like Red T or MuLil’ Cair, or retroactively assign a Prime Minister to be the new poster boy of Canadian rap. I’m sure that R.B Bennett could be Biggy Bennett or something.