B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A

I resisted listening to Prince, the musician, for a long time because of the negative associations I placed on him due to the fact that people have always insisted on using him as a reference point when they mock my name. I don't mind the mocking, really, except that everybody thinks they're doing it for the first time and that I don't hear that every time I meet someone new.

But my resolve has slowly dissolved over the years, and I find myself currently spinning Prince's new album, Planet Earth, which bounces from genre to genre and features a few great tunes. (Download "Resolution" and "All the Midnights in the World.")

Anyway, there's a song on there called "Future Baby Mama," which I'm not particularly fond of but it does remind me of a song that Fantasia sang a few years ago that was one of the most simultaneously catchy and unintentionally funny songs I had heard in a long, long time. It's called "Baby Mama," a song of maternal empowerment so earnest that it took me a good while to figure out that it isn't a joke. It's sort of a "Weird Al" Yankovic song that "Weird Al" Yankovic never wrote.

Here, then, is Fantasia, singing "Baby Mama." By the time the second chorus rolls around, I want you to join in: "B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A." And as much as you'll want to believe this is some elaborate hoax, it is not:



Despite myself, I just love Fantasia. I really do.