What is... Drop it like it's Hot, Alex?

Is anyone else here a huge fan of Jeopardy?

Erin and I always switch to channel 5 right at 7:00 (after getting our Keagan Harsha fix), and yell our answers at the screen for a half hour, while using commercial breaks to catch each other up on our days. Whereas Erin usually pulls an impressive number of answers out of nowhere, my own knowledge fluctuates based on the category. Either I rock all five answers, or I know none. At all.

French language? BAM!

Beers of the World?  SNAP!

Hip Hop / Rap? Apparently... yeah!

My knowledge of music trivia is embarrassing. Because I post here, and own a record label of sorts, my friends tend to assume that I actually know things about the music world. My poor performance at Nectar's trivia night week after week, would suggest otherwise.

So when I totally rocked the Hip Hop / Rap category of Jeopardy last night, it warranted a text message to another Trebek fan to let him know. And determined office chatter of this morning. Because I was just that proud that my white suburban upbringing had properly schooled me in the ways of gangster rap.

Well that... and I'm a slave to pop culture.

In any case, more amusing than my own correct answers, were the blank stares of last night's three contestants.

The three were very much of typical 'Jeopardy contestant' mold. That is, solemn, conservatively dressed, and middle-aged. Well, I guess the 'conservatively dressed' statement could be argued. Last night's winner did sport a goatee, and a silver dangly earing in his left ear.

In any case, the contestants were clearly not huge hip hop fans. But one was a high school English teacher. And somewhere along the way, perhaps during their Shakespeare unit, one of her students must have let it slip that there is a hip hop artist named Lil' Romeo, because man, did she know that. She may not have been sure of of Jay-Z's use of the Annie soundtrack, and she certainly didn't know who was referred to as "Notorious", but she knew the name Lil' Romeo, and she made sure Alex knew the name Lil' Romeo. Over and over again.

It was awesome.

Luckily no one crushed her pop culture glow by informing her that the artist has adhered to the hip hop rule of name changes, and now goes simply by "Romeo", likely to be replaced by the more traditional "Percy Miller Jr." once his basketball career takes off. True to form, he already has a clothing line called simply PMiller.

Hip hop and Jeopardy. What a match!