Old School Minute - Black Rob - Whoa!

If you don't remember Black Rob, then you are most people. He came to be around the year 2000 when he dropped his first album "Life Story." The album was released under Puff Daddy's (I believe he still went by that at that time) label, Bad Boy Records.

Not to be confused with White Rob.

If you remember anything about Black Rob, you probably remember the first, and only, single off that record, "Whoa!"

The thing that always sticks with me about "Whoa!" is that it clearly wanted to introduce the word Whoa into the American lexicon. It even has a quick introduction to the word at the beginning of the video, informing you that, "When you see somethin' ill, you know what I mean, that shit is whoa." Oh, I know what you mean.

And honestly, it's not that far fetched or novel an idea. Rap music has been giving us slang since its inception, including the word "ill" that B.R. uses in his definition of Whoa. Even label-mate Puffy had success bringing the term "Benjamin" to the mainstream when he made a song claiming "it" was "all about them." And it's this usual success hip hop has in bringing us words, that makes instances like this very funny to me. It's like watching one of your friends try and self-apply a nickname and having it ultimately denied by the friend group.

But, as stated earlier, for every failure, there are plenty of other great successes. When B.G. released the song "Bling Bling", the namesake of that song took the world by storm. It went down the sacred path of all other great words and phrases that came before it. That path: born in the streets, loved and spread by youth culture, and finally dying when it appears in commercials and becomes regularly used by your mom and her friends. And I personally think that it's very nice and fitting that the song opens with a tribute to its less fortunate brethren.