What Would It Be Like to Have a Rapper Roommate?

By

I was speaking to a friend while we walked around Bushwick when she mentioned that her friend was the roommate of Grand Puba, the rapper. I wondered which rappers would make the best and worst roommates? Since I don’t know many rappers personally, I have to draw conclusions from what they reveal about themselves in their lyrics.

A roommate who is cooperative and helpful can make the task of sharing an apartment less burdensome. Trick Daddy seems like he has a good attitude about his living space and I would recommend him:

I wanna do commercial and TV shows
I wanna blow and sell records like the BeeGees sold
And I don’t really need a chaffeur, I don’t need a maid or a cook
Just a vacumn cleaner and coasters
And I can cook and clean for myself.

He sounds really down to earth, in spite of his fame. I don’t even like to use coasters, so he’s better than I am with furniture maintenance, and if you have a nice coffee table made of wood, that kind of thoughtful gesture can go a long way. Respecting furniture is crucial and that leads me to say Phife Dawg would be a bad pick for the moment he relates here:

Let me hit it from the back, girl I won’t catch a hernia
Bust off on your couch, now you got Seamen’s Furniture.

It might not be fair to infer that Phife Dawg treats the furniture in his house the same way he does when he is a guest, but respect tends to be universally distributed in our actions, and if that were my couch, I’d be mad. It’s not like a set of bedsheets that can be thrown in the laundry. The fabric on most couches has to be treated gingerly, and I hope for this girl’s couch’s sake that it was covered in plastic.

Doing household chores is undesirable, but everyone has to do it, and you don’t want to find yourself living with someone who resents you for asking him or her to do those chores. A good attitude towards chores is a great quality in a roommate. In the case of Mr. Sos, although he doesn’t particularly look forward to cleaning a public toilet, his willingness to do so makes him stand out in my book:

But my manager’s been stressin’ the way I been dressin’
Tellin’ me I need new shoes but I can’t afford to get them!
He’s all about perfection and does shit that I hate!
Today he wrote me up and I was only five minutes late!
And then he threatened to take me off grill and make me scrub plates
And the toilet where people shit out all the food they just ate!
AW FUCK! I’m starting to hear my screws bust
Screw it, I’ll do it, he gives me Windex and a toothbrush
Now I’m scrubbin the toilet like, FUCK MY BOSS and HE STINKS!

Kudos to Mr. Sos for being a team player. Being spoiled can make things hard, and that’s why it’s uncertain how good a roommate Special Ed would be. Sure, when there is a dishwasher, he’ll buy Cascade, but what about if you don’t have that appliance? Wouldn’t a spoiled guy avoid the dishes?

I’m kinda spoiled
cuz everything I want I got made
I wanted gear–got everything from cotton to suede
I wanted lead–I didn’t beg I just got laid
My hair was growin too long, so I got me a fade
and when my dishes got dirty, I got Cascade.

Most importantly, you don’t want to wind up with a roommate who just lets things slide, as seems to be the case with Cise Star:

They just cut off my cable!
No food up in the kitchen, but I got dirty dishes
Does that make any sense?