04.11.07 Why Mims Is Hot: A Graphical Dissertation On America’s Number One Song

This is why “This Is Why I’m Hot” is hot: Because it’s hot. There are of course other reasons the breakout single from Mims, a Washington Heights rapper who intends to carry New York hip-hop on his back and restore us to glory, is hot. It ascended to number one on Billboard’s Hot 100, for example, and topped iTunes’ singles chart as well. But consider these other, purer, more intangible reasons why it’s hot, best explained by Mims himself over the course of the song. Where appropriate, we will back him up with visual aids.

The most amazing line in “This Is Why I’m Hot"—and, even at this early a juncture, quite possibly the most amazing line of any song to see release in 2007—is “I’m hot ‘cause I’m fly/You ain’t ‘cause you not.” Brutal and unassailable in its simplicity. Consider the reasoning, first, of just “I’m hot ‘cause I’m fly”:

Mims is hot because he’s fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one’s being fly? “You ain’t ‘cause you not” would seem to clear that up:

It would appear that fly and hot are interchangable. If you are one, you are both; if you aren’t at least one, you are neither.

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