WCS Upsets LMFAO's Teen-Acting, Adult Son of Motown Founder (But His Mom Is There For Him)
In 1975, Motown founder and record industry legend Berry Gordy had a child named Stefan (or Stephen) with a woman named Nancy Leiviska. Stefan grew up around showbiz: his mom directed Rick James' "Super Freak" video, his half-brother Kennedy had a big hit (and current GEICO commercial soundtrack) as Rockwell with "Somebody's Watching Me," and half-sister Rhonda's mom was none other than Diana Ross. (Basically, his childhood seems to have been a swingers-and-polyester sequel to Dreamgirls. We're positive Billy Dee Williams was somewhere in the background, looking all cool and shit).
Our friend, Stefan Gordy (aka LMFAO's "Redfoo")
Now 34, Stefan Gordy reinvented himself as "Redfoo" (or "Red Foo"), partnered up with his nephew Skylar (renamed "Blu Sky"), and joined the family trade as mastermind of "party rock" duo LMFAO. Stefan had previously toyed with the party rapper schtick as straight-up comedy in little-seen film Potheads (2005), but by now he's doing it in all earnest. LMFAO has done popular remixes (of the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow," for example) and was just nominated for a Grammy, but they're mostly famous for two fratty singles-- "I'm in Miami, Bitch" and "Shots."
Last month, LMFAO brought their Party Rock Tour to the Hollywood Palladium and we were there to cover the show. Well, a couple of days ago, somewhere in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Stefan read our review and didn't like it a bit. As LMFAO's personal blogger (aka "flack in charge of giving fans the illusion of access") Elle wrote on their site yesterday:
I woke up this [last Tuesday's] afternoon to find Foo scowling over a piece in LA Weekly. The writer, Gustavo Turner, who was covering our November 7th tour stop at the Hollywood Palladium, referred to Foo and Sky as "rap clowns" and shared his rather blunt and wordy opinion in a Party Rock assault on blogs.laweekly.com. "Who in LA really reads LA Weekly, anyway?" Foo asked. As we all know, Foo and Sky can be called many things, but "party animals", "dynamic duo" and "sexy dudes" would be more fitting descriptions.
With the hindsight of almost a whole month of reflection, we do stand by our blunt and wordy opinions:
...it's hard to see the line between LMFAO and some Chappelle Show parody of their kind of nonsense. Oversize bottles of Corona? Check. More references to the underage crowd being loaded? Check. Repeated intimations to "shake that ass," "grabbing freaks to the beat," and "making the booty pop" issued by an LMFAO wearing a zebra-print stage getup that makes him look like a cross between a pimp and his ho? You know it.
(We also did point out that "the crowd [...] had a great time throughout the evening," but Stefan was probably too busy scowling to get to the end of the review.)
After the flack's post about Stefan's displeasure with our coverage (memo to Elle: it's just polite to link to our page, you know, even if you're criticizing it), we got a taste of their fans' wit in the post's comments section.
First came Emily Nicole, who actually makes some sensible points:
i love being able to come home from a long day of classes and put on my lmfao cd or shwayze cd and just enjoy music. it may be talking about these topics but they do it in a much more lively and more fun fashion than rappers seem to be doing it these days. i believe weezy said it best with "i wish i could fuck every girl in the world." so maybe next time when you write a blog, you do it a bit more open minded to the age group they are trying to reach which expands much larger than preteens to 20.
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