“I only have one beef with ["Empire State of Mind"]. There’s not enough about the suburbs in it,” Stephen Colbert told Alicia Keys when The Element of Freedom singer guested on last night’s episode of The Colbert Report. Rather than wait patiently for “Empire State of Mind III” to give credit to the outlying New York areas, Colbert joined Keys during her performance of “Empire” to rap and pay tribute to the upper middle class suburbanites.
“Shoppin’ mall is close, my community is gated/My shorties are all private school educated,” Colbert raps during his surprise feature. “Home theater system, 60-inch plasma/Clean suburban air, much better for my asthma.” Colbert goes on to profess his love for Times Square — a tourist trap that city dwellers themselves will admit they go out of their way to avoid — as well as sing harmony with Keys on the song’s closing coda.
While Colbert has a long way to go before matching the lyrical talents of Jay-Z, the host has overtaken Shy Ronnie as the best rapper to appear on a comedy series in the past two weeks. “This song is the greatest hit, it’s gonna take over ‘New York, New York,’ you can take that thing and throw it in the trash,” Colbert tells Keys during the interview segment, when we learn that The Element of Freedom is in fact “sheep” and not gold.
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• Jay-Z, Alicia Keys Tour New York in “Empire State of Mind” Video
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...Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily