92. Ozzie Guillen by Serengeti

"Ozzie Guillen" by Serengeti

Written by David Cohen
Produced by Midas Wells
Released on Dennehy (2006)
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I first met Serengeti sometime around 2004 or 2005. He had just played a show at the Hi-Pointe in St. Louis. I went with a few of my friends who were more familiar with him than I was. One of them had played me a bootlegged version of his song "Dennehy," which was both hilarious and excellent.

After the show, outside the venue, I was talking with Midas Wells, one of Serengeti's collaborators. I mentioned how much I loved "Dennehy." He was like, cool, I produced that. Then he mentioned that he had produced an entire album for Serengeti. I said cool. He handed me Noticeably Negro. I handed him 15 bucks. Everyone went home happy.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure that I actually met Serengeti that night. I'm starting to wonder if I ever talked to him. I definitely met Midas Wells, but I'm not sure if Serengeti was there when we talked. I might have been introduced to him before the show, but I'm not sure.

At that time, I was spending most of the year in Michigan, so when I was in St. Louis, I was spending as much time as I could with my best friend. What he was spending a lot of his time doing was live art at local hip-hop shows. He was doing this primarily for a couple of guys we had gone to high school with, who were now trying to make it as rappers. It was a fun time, and a scene I never would have expected to get heavily involved with. I met a bunch of really cool people, got to hang out back stage a few times, and listened to some really cool local music and occasionally some not so good local music. Serengeti, even though he was from Chicago, had collaborated with some of these local guys I was getting to know. This is why I think I met him at some point, but because neither of us were living full-time in St. Louis then, I might not have.

Here's what I do remember. At the time of that show of his that I went to see, "Dennehy" had not yet been officially released, but it had been passed around a ton. When Serengeti was doing his set, in between songs, people in the crowd kept yelling for "Dennehy." I could tell he didn't really want to, or at least hadn't planned to. Finally towards the end of his set, once it seemed that everyone in that tight crowd was chanting for it, he did went ahead and signaled for his DJ to play the track. The crowd went bananas and Serengeti started rapping. At one point, as I'm rapping along, I realized that he couldn't remember all the lyrics. I swear he started looking at me, expecting me to help him with the lyrics, but I didn't know all the words either. It was kind of a disaster, but it didn't really matter. The people heard "Dennehy," everyone loved it too much to care, and we all went home happy.

I don't love everything that Serengeti has released. His Noticeably Negro album, that I mentioned earlier, was good, and had a couple songs that I liked, but overall it was not quite my style. When he finally released a Dennehy album, I was excited and picked it up. It too is hit and miss, but has more stuff I like including a few more songs where Serengeti puts on his 'Kenny' persona like he did for "Dennehy." Kenny is basically one of those guys from the old SNL Super-Fan skits: a mustached, brat-eating Chicago sports fan. Apparently that guy also loves the movies of the great Brian Dennehy. I'm not sure I would have put that together, but now that I think about it, it makes pretty good sense.

"Ozzie Guillen" takes that Kenny character to the next level. I love the laid back beat and the flow of the story. I love that in the wake of the White Sox' World Series triumph, he can't help but scream Ozzie Guillen's name. I love that he drinks O'Doul's, and I love that he loves his wife. It's a happy song and a funny song and it makes me smile when I hear it. It also reminds me of a crazy time in my life when I was an underground St. Louis hip hop super-fan.

Right now "Ozzie Guillen" by Serengeti is (probably) my 92nd favorite song of all time.