Today, boys and girls, we explore modern concepts of lust/love on the contemporary dance floor.

It’s obvious to everyone from P. Fork’s David Raposa to my 8 year-old sister that “Run It!” is, essentially, “Yeah!” Just, instead of big synth production by Lil Jon, it has big synth production by Scott Storch, Juelz Santana instead of Ludacris with a career-low verse in the eighth inning, and a teenage star crooner who’s less the Usher he wants to be and more Romeo as the fifth member of Pretty Ricky. So the track’s tired with comparisons before one can even really talk about it, and while it has its own juvenile energy, its music’s not exactly the freshest of the fresh. The point of interest lies in the song’s explication of current adolescent sexual politics – or “current” as of November 2005, at any rate. And, taking a cue from the (also) current administration, this is some scary-ass politicking.

Only ostensibly disregarding that Brown’s a dopey-looking heifer, any girl with a smidge of modesty would have to be on their guard at the boy’s frothy fount of innuendo and come-ons. Parents would be drawing up the moat bridge. “Run It!” finds Brown on the prowl, his barely-there manhood having come to recognize the dance floor as a ritualistic pre-mating (or just mating) ground. Steps become equated and equivocated with sex: “Babe pretty thick with the kick that’s sick that need to be hit.” The wonderful new world of dancing body parts gets young Chris a little too worked up, ready to wreck relationships in his chorus (“Is yo man on the flo? / If he ain’t, let me know”) and to cum on the hook (“The way you drop, drop makes me wanna pop”). This can only end in a rap from one of the Dipset oversexed, Juelz quickly pushing the rhythm ‘n crunk rave of “Run It!” on to its somewhat degenerate and depressing conclusion, a partner-switching orgy of 16 year-olds who make icons out of Ying Yang Twins.

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