The Side Part: ThaBro’s Fourth of July Country Jubilee Gathering of Dopeness
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Yo.
It’s Master Lock aka Mamba’s Nightmare aka Swiss Army Strife, Thabo Sefolosha. Would like to take this time to welcome you to ThaBro’s Fourth of July Country Jubilee & Gathering of Dopeness. It’s July 4th and, even though I hail from Switzerland, your boy knows a bit about how to celebrate the 4th. More specifically, I know about the country jams you need in your ears to maximize the funtivities experienced throughout Independence Day.
Essentially, the TFJCJGD is a forum for me to discuss my favorite country music tracks currently on the charts that you should have in heavy rotation at all your July 4th get-togethers. This ain’t GAC. This ain’t CMT. This is that realness, that trueness, and that piping hot rawness. Only the crispiest of jams make this list. I’ll bring to you a handful of my favorite joints. Five tunes that speak to me. Songs that exude heart, truth, heat, and some good ole fashioned redwhiteblueness.
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First, though, an aside.
I am quiet in person. My private life is one I like keeping just that: private. I don’t have much to say to reporters and they don’t have much to say to me. Because of this, you may be in the dark when it comes to what it is that makes me tick.
To help, I’ve opened up my caramel soul and will reveal to you the rules that I live by.
There are only three of them.
1. Keep it real.
2. Always ask for more breadsticks late in the meal at Olive Garden. Eat none of them. Then, when it’s time for the check, ask them if they’ll bag them up for you.
3. Whatever Garth says goes.
And that’s it. Follow those rules when you’re around me, we’ll be cool. Don’t, and I’ll treat you like I treated Tony Parker in Games 3-6 of the Western Conference Finals a couple seasons ago.
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Now, some clarification before we jump into this list.
This’ll be Top 40 Country, so you red dirt snobs that ride the crotches of Jason Boland and The Stragglers, JB and the Moonshine Band, and whoever else can get to trippin’ elsewhere. There’s a place for the grime, for sure. I enjoy it. But this is about those that are worldwide. I’m about reach. These artists, for better or worse, have reach beyond the Wade Bowen’s of the world. Oklahoma Breakdown goes hard in the paint, though.
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The TFJCJGD List
1) Highway Don’t Care (Yo, Not Even A Little Bit)
Song of the summer? Me no know, but maybe.
Professor Jamstein aka Timmy McRaw, Tim McGraw, and The Soft Child Bird aka Baby Bunny Voice, Taylor Swift, bring fire on this song. Keith “Rural” Urban shreds on this as well, but he’s got no vocals on the track so we won’t talk anymore of him. Swizzler and Timmy really kill it, though, their voices just straight melting together.
It’s going to come on the radio at some point so you can either make the most out of it and shout along with it or you can get all sad and think about a balding Timmy and texting while driving. Go with the former. Ayyyymerica.
2) Dayum, Baby
If you want Suave conditioner level smoothness then take a trip to the Florida-Georgia Line.
I sing this to my girl, Bertille, all the time. I’m on my George Jones when I do it, too. Chick is swooning. These FGL dudes are a good time, too, man. You talk about a catchy song.
Grab a brew, get horizontal in a hammock, have your someone join you, and find your party place. This is to be enjoyed in the early evening while you’ve got a belly full of burgers, hot dogs, BBQ Baked Lays, and watermelon.
Also, I’m all in on guys who have the audacity to alter language and challenge the norm by cspellyng werdz dipherintly. America is about being a pioneer and a maverick and making obscene gestures at the establishment. Rock on, FGL. For America.
Lady HEY NOW. Don’t get it twisted and don’t let the way too well kept haircuts fool you. This tripod can bring melodies and harmonies forth with the same powerful efficiency that Zeus brought forth lightning bolts.
This is this summer’s “Springsteen”. You want nostalgia? You got it. You want to feel young? You got it. You want a story of small town young love? Dudes, you got it.
No use crying. Don’t be thinking about tomorrow. Drag out the summer night on the 4th, Okie Dokies.
Heartbreaker.
What good is love without the trust?
Honest question by Musgraves here. She admits to being out of touch and out of reach. She’s looking for someone to get her back to the good. She’s keeping it real. She says she’ll just keep moving. That’s what’s up. Stay bobbing. Stay weaving. Keep pushing forward. If we don’t have it we’re all always holding out for love again. And when we find it we’re all about it. True, hot, truthness from Musgraves.
Hot, young star she is. Got that Rashida Jones-ish vibe to her look, too, which I dig like shovels.
Play this if you don’t have somebody to hang with while the fire’s exploding in the sky. It’ll make you super sad, but that joint’s gonna be poetic as cuss AND I AM ABOUT THAT POETIC LIFE.
Got to have some room for some late night party in your mix. Got to keep it loose like animals at a zoo with no electricity.
This jumbo jam is about taking your fine lady or dude and cruising in your grandfather’s old, baby blue Chevy Love out to some nice, little pasture somewhere. Lay with them while you stare up at all that sky glitter. It’s about making the night count. No wasted hours.
Also, great message from Houser as well. Ladies need to know that they are pretty enough when they wake up. ThaBro’s always been about checking your makeup at the door and coming with that honest, beautiful rawness that is a natural face. Play this joint as the sun’s dying and the sky’s getting painted orange and the sparklers are coming out.
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The end. Say what’s real. Have a dope Fourth.
Don’t miss the dance.
T.S.