POPSCREEN: Lil Mama ft. Chris Brown and T-Pain

Lil Mama and Chris Brown are the new Janet and Michael Jackson—and T-Pain, ironically enough, is the new Tito. The “Lip Gloss” chanteuse and her crazy-legged counterparts find themselves in Mama’s latest video, “Shawty Get Loose,” on a spacecraft that’s strikingly similar to the one depicted in Janet and Michael’s 1995 “Scream.” While “Scream,” the most expensive music video ever produced, had a bit of a futuristic “Star Wars” feel to it, “Shawty Get Loose” looks Spaceballs-cheap: it’s gaudy and completely ridiculous.

Lil Mama starts things off dancing in an insanely well-lit corridor. She raps with a subtle melodic lilt over a boomingly percussive beat, a combination reminiscent of Gwen Stefani’s 2004 “Hollaback Girl.” In fact, New York’s own Lil Mama has a lot in common (particularly lyrically) with Orange County’s Stefani. A close listen to what Mama’s actually saying confirms our worst fears. “Hoppin’ on my grind since butt touched potty” isn’t a far cry from Stefani’s high school nerd raps about bananas and pom poms.

In the future this video depicts, microphones not only fly but evidently can be swallowed and regurgitated, as Chris Brown demonstrates (note the phallic imagery here). Other highlights include spasmodic dancing, Chris Brown’s horrendous facial tics, and a holographic mixing board/control panel which T-Pain masterfully coordinates.

T-Pain explains, in some futuristic algebra lingo in the beginning of “Shawty Get Loose,” that “Greatness plus greatness equals great greatness.” But if this “great greatness” is really just a tweaked version of the world depicted in the Jacksons’ “Scream” video, I’m not sure I want any part of it. After all, look how the Jacksons turned out.

—David R. Johnson