Hey, Sucka Tenors!

How come boasting, touting one's skills, and denigrating the skills of others works so well in rap music but is hardly (if ever) employed as a song topic in other styles? I can't think of a single Phil Collins song where the chief subject is Phil's mad singing or drumming abilities. Or where Mr. Collins "calls out" another pop practictioner as a "sucka."

In particular, I'd think that opera would be ideal for this sort of treatment. So much of the right attitude is already right there, in terms of subtext, at the top tier of the game. The rivalries ("beefs" if you will), the focus on one's mad outlandish vocal abilities (albeit pipes more than rhymes). The focus on ego, and on being superior. It would take only a slight shift to take all of that attitude and subtext and make it explicit, make it the subject instead of the subtext. I mean, we already know that people go to see these tenors show off! Think how much excitement it would bring, to let it get a little more directly competitive. A shift like that could really jump up the whole opera game to a new level of cultural notoriety.

Just picture the top tenors going at it back and forth with "answer" records and ever-more-ludicrous attempts to "top" each other! "Hey, sucka tenor, you can't hold a note like thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiss!!!"

Picture how great that'd sound in Italian.