On my way home from work, an old neon green Impala with enormous wheels catches my eye. “I wonder if that’s a six-fo'” says my brain. And then the song comes. It’s an acoustic cover of NWA’s Boyz in the Hood. It’s a song that I haven’t listened to since high-school, but it came back as if Seacrest had just announced it on American Top 40.
As I belt the tune out at the top of my lungs, in my most exaggerated country accent – because my ’97 Civic is completely soundproof, and surely nobody outside the car can hear me – I’m fascinated by how effortlessly the lyrics flow from my mouth; yet trying to recall seven words of high school Spanish still comes as a fun challenge.
I get to the part where the dude pulls up in a fresh El Camino and says, “It’s all about makin’ that GTA,” and I realize I don’t know what that means. For anyone that’s a Grand Theft Auto fan, you already know the answer, but I haven’t played since college, and I guess it didn’t make as lasting an impression as this song. And for those of you that aren’t Grand Theft Auto fans, it means Grand Theft Auto.