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What’s Portuguese for ‘no-talent hack’? K-Fed!

Britney's hubby's song sticks in the brain like Cheetos on a ‘PopoZao’
/ Source: msnbc.com contributor

Hey kids! What’s Portuguese for “no-talent hack”? If you guessed “K-Fed,” you’re burning up!

Sure, the Google translator may not agree. But language is fluid, give it time. (Think how fast Snoop Dogg embedded “izzle” in the participle zeitgeist.) In the wake of Kevin Federline’s rap debut, “PopoZao” (Portuguese for bodacious derrière), Brazil might just oblige. It’s the least South America can do for the United States — the country that gave the world its very first Mr. Britney Spears.

Allegedly the first single from an upcoming album, Federline’s “PopoZao” dropped exclusively on Yahoo Music Unlimited and quickly became the hottest thing on the Internet since “Saturday Night Live’s” “Lazy Sunday” video. Blogs, chat rooms and bulletin boards were on the Brazilian-flavored disco ditty like trailer trash on a pop star. And not because, like Mr. Pibb and Red Vines, it’s crazy delicious. Word to Sean Preston’s mother: Turns out the popular-culture consuming audience doesn’t really like Kevin Federine.

Poor K-Fed. His bad publicity precedes him. “PopoZao” could be the greatest song ever recorded (it’s not), and the world would still say it stinks. But contrary to popular belief, Federline is not a carbuncle on society’s PopoZao — not currently anyway. K-Fed provides an important function in the human condition, and his new single brings this valuable contribution into relief. Anybody who attended high school understands — every wolf pack needs its omega dog. Britney Spears generously provided our latest — and it ain’t her tea-cup chihuahua, Bit Bit.

Unfortunately, “PopoZao” is not the worst song ever recorded, either. The airwaves are lousy with this junk. K-Fed’s version of the pop mainstream is three minutes of overly ambitious production shuffling a six-note synthesizer riff between Latin disco beats and insipid rap. Aping a generic foreign accent, Federline yips and barks through the intro, then launches into some mercifully brief rhymes.

Less 'Laffy Taffy,' more 'My Humps'D4L’s hit, “Laffy Taffy” is the tune to which “PopoZao” is compared. Intellectually, it has more in common with the humorless and moronic “My Humps” by Black Eyed Peas and “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent. “I wanna see your kitty and a little bitta t***y,” Federline bleets in a nasal faux Snoop.

Alas, K-Fed is seriously afflicted with White-Boy Flo, the sort Eminem mocks in his hit, “Just Lose It.” You know Em is just playing when he demands “everybody report to the dance floor.” But when K-Fed raps “bring that Brazil booty on the floor,” you’re supposed to take him seriously.

Like “My Humps” and “Candy Shop,” “PopoZao” has all the tricks. The tune is so insidious that if you’re foolish enough to listen to it more than twice, you’ll need brain surgery to remove it from your head. For that reason, “PopoZao” is destined to become a dance club staple, at least for a while. There at the disco Federline can take comfort that his tune is serving its intended purpose — and not the need it’s now filling on the Web.

The next Tom Arnold?Kevin Federline is the Tom Arnold of his generation. Behind closed doors, he may not be the no-class talent-free blood-sucking absentee-father misogynist he’s generally regarded as by pretty much everyone. Sure the evidence doesn’t look good for ol’ K-Fed. But hey! Even Michael Jackson was acquitted. And unless you’re one of K-Fed’s expanding brood of baby mamas and children, it doesn’t matter.

We hate Federline because he’s just like that jerk your sister married who brags about his mafia connections and blows the family’s insurance payout on a water filter pyramid scheme. He’s the bad boy scumbag your friend is dating — the one she insists is her soul mate. He’s also the bad boy scumbag you insisted was your soul mate, back when you were young and stupid. That’s how you know you can’t excise the scumbag jerk from your sister or friend. You can only watch events unfold like falling china you’ll never be quick enough to catch.

You can, however, blow off steam by ripping into Federline, as well as his “PopoZao.” That’s what he’s there for. In cyperspace, it’s OK to hate the player instead of the game.

Federline is our common enemy. Eliminate the common enemy and the group turns on each other. And the group is vicious. One quick browse through the hateful (and hilarious) chat room barbs fired at K-Fed and you know you don’t want the group turning on you.

But don’t worry about K-Fed, the fact that he still doesn’t have a record label, or that people who don’t have anything nice to say are saying it about him. Federline (along with Britney’s PIN number) is crying about it all the way to the ATM.

Helen A.S. Popkin is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com and has deleted “PopoZao” from her iPod.