[8] Ol’ Dirty Bastard featuring Kelis, ‘Got Your Money’

ODB

It’s a sensitive treatise on Child Support. It’s a generous offer to appear in a pop video. It’s a flipped-out, garbled, screaming funk monster with a Kelis on top. Once again, there’s a thin line between inspiration and eyeballs-on-stalks insanity, and ODB (RIP) just pogos from one side to the other.

The Neptunes produced this, sneaking their protégée in on chorus duties, and it’s an early sign of the bounce and originality they’d go on to sprinkle over piles and piles of records – before deciding a couple of years ago that N*E*R*D were flippin’ Supertramp or something, and messing everything up. Kelis does a perfunctory job, saving her best stuff for the greatest female r&b album ever (honest, look it up somewhere).

There’s a school of thought that this record’s a bit rude for a 10-month-old’s ears. Ah, come on, she can’t understand. Can she? While storing up a cache of colourful language, Junior gets into the groove from the first beat. She looks delighted that I’ve even put it on. The cool kids at nursery have probably been talking about it.