The Bloodhound Gang's Jimmy Pop is perplexed that his lyrics are causing so much controversy. The unreleased song, "Yellow Fever" -- whose chorus is "Chinky chinky bang bang I love you/Chinky chinky bang bang I hope you love me too" -- in particular has drawn the ire of a coalition of the University of Maryland's student unions, spearheaded by the Asian American Student Union, which plans a protest of the band's Friday night on-campus concert.

Pop maintains that the song is not anti-Asian. "The whole song is about how I want to bang an Asian girl," he said prior to the band's show at Toronto's Warehouse yesterday. "I just don't know how something like that could breed hate. It's all in good humor."

The AASU sees it quite differently, claiming that the Bloodhound Gang's lyrics and videos are offensive to "Asians, Asian Americans, Christians, women and those who are physically and mentally challenged, among others" and that they "perpetuate harmful stereotypes." It's not so much the one song in question, says AASU spokesperson Tanya Lee, but the band as a whole. "It just comes off as being hateful," Lee says. "It's one thing if [an artist] is being satirical, like Eminem, but when you see a video like the Bloodhound Gang's [for "The Bad Touch"], when they're beating up two gay Frenchmen, that's condoning homophobia and abuse towards homosexuals. It's degrading and demeaning."

Consequently, the AASU has teamed up various student organizations, including the Latino Student Union, the NAACP, the Jewish Student Union, the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Student Alliance, Women's Circle and the Panhellenic Council to voice opposition to the band's performance. In addition to holding a sit-in on campus Thursday, the student groups support a petition against the band's performance at www.dragon5000.com -- at press time, they had garnered over 1300 signatures. As for the actual protest, students opposed to the Bloodhound Gang concert plan to attend, wearing bright yellow shirts as a show of unity, but with their backs to the band.

Will the Bloodhound Gang care? Probably not. "You can always tell when someone's reading into [the lyrics], because when they pick out what it is they hate about your record, it reflects on them," Jimmy Pop says. "In other words, it would probably be an Asian-American that would hate a song about an Asian girl and me wanting to screw her.

"You never hear about a Jewish guy complaining about the fact that we're making fun of some black guy's teeth. You never hear a black guy complaining because we're making fun of some Jewish guy's nose. So we just dismiss all that. We know what we do, and the people who listen to our records get it. And those that don't listen to our records, we really don't care."

What's unusual is that "Yellow Fever" is four years old and not included on any Bloodhound Gang album. According to Pop, Geffen pulled the track because the label also thought it crossed the line. He himself dismisses the song as "poorly written."

"The funny part is this thing is not available anywhere, which means that someone was a really big fan and really did their research," says the band's manager Brett Alperowitz. "We're trying to find out where this originated from, who found the song and who brought it to the attention of school."

"Apparently the Asian students groups are now photocopying the lyrics and distributing them around campus, which is copyright violation, so we can sue them," jokes bassist Evil Jared.

"I don't think we want to battle them," cautions Alperowitz. "I think we just want to have a good time."

KAREN BLISS AND JENNIFER VINEYARD
(May 5, 2000)