Lawyers Don't Get Crunk

Today I, being the aspiring young entertainment lawyer that I am, attended a conference on Copyright and Trademark issues in the entertainment industry. I found it interesting on many levels, most of which involving the fact that this area of law does NOT incite me to gauge my eyes out with a corkscrew and feed them to snapping turtles, BUT for your purposes, it was interesting for the following reason:

There were two main presenters at the conference, both seasoned attorneys in the entertainment and intellectual property field. Both were white, middle aged, and had intelligent appearances (nice way to say nerdy). They had extensive outlines, a nifty power point slideshow, and several real life examples of the law in action. They were relatively engaging, and seemed very knowledgeable about the topics presented…..until…..

They started discussing a case in which Rosa Parks sued recording artists OutKast, and their pruducers LaFace Records concerning the use of her name and the First Amendment rights of the Defendants in the creation and marketing of the song Rosa Parks….

…Anyway, so they displayed the following lyrics to demonstrate the context of said usage:

Ah ha, hush that fuss
Everybody move to the back of the bus
Do you wanna bump and slump with us
We the type of people make the club get crunk

THEN, one of the speakers says, dead seriously: “I know what crunk means”, and the other, passed him the microphone to elaborate. He said, “I think it means drunk”.

The other speaker then adds, equally as stone faced and matter-of-factly: “It means crazy drunk”, but admitted that there may be interpretations of which he was not aware.

THEN, someone, an older Caucasian attorney from the audience shouts out “Crack cocaine, that’s what it means!” And the room grunts and frowns as if expressing sympathy for the poor plaintiff, Rosa Parks.

Nothing more was said about the word “crunk” from that point on, and I believe the majority of the people in the room simply accepted the suggested interpretations of the word, and moved on. I, however, was laughing hysterically to myself in the back of the room, to the point of tears!

Thanks to Beth, I now submit to you, the Wikipedia definition of “CRUNK”

Crunk music is a specific type of hip hop music, based out of the Southern United States, particularly on the eastern side of Atlanta, Georgia; and Memphis, Tennessee. Crunk is classified as a subdivision of Dirty South or Southern rap and is an outgrowth of Atlanta-based Miami Bass and perhaps more directly, New Orleans' Bounce music.

Or
Crunk is also thought to be derived from a combination of the words "crazy" and "drunk", or a combination of "chronic" and "drunk", referring to when someone is both drunk from alcohol and high on marijuana, at the same time.
Rap Artist Lil Jon defines Crunk as a "state of heightened excitement".
Additionally, "crunk" is an onomatopoeic description of the noise a crane makes (as in, "the crunk of a crane").

Interestingly enough, it appears that speaker number 2 was right!