Boston Bruins fans co-opt Steelers song

Wednesday, June 15, 2011
By Dan Majors, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Game 7 tonight in Vancouver. The Canucks versus the Boston Bruins. Only one team can claim the Stanley Cup.

If only the same were true of songs.

Fans in Boston, caught up in the thrill of seeing their team skate toward a possible NHL championship, have found a tune to rally 'round -- an anthem if you will -- that has a fairly familiar ring to it.

It's "Black and Yellow," by Allderdice High School graduate Wiz Khalifa, which he penned as an homage to the signature colors of Pittsburgh sports teams. The tune, released in the fall, rose to No. 1 on the charts as the Steelers marched to the Super Bowl.

You couldn't venture into a club or sports bar in Pittsburgh last winter and not hear Steelers fans singing along with it.

"That song got played all the time, every night during the football season," said Mark Gorga, owner of Sloppy Joe's on Mount Washington, which has the tune on the jukebox. "It was like a pep rally. Before the game, during halftime."

It was at about the same time that the song was noticed by Dan Fleming, 24, an aspiring hip-hop and rap artist from Peabody, Mass., just north of Boston. Fleming writes his own songs, mostly remixes, and posts them on YouTube and Facebook.

"I hear a song, and I think, 'I like this; I kind of want to rap on this.' I go to the studio and make my own version of it," he said Tuesday. "When I first heard 'Black and Yellow,' I immediately thought, 'Oh, Bruins!' "

For Steelers fans, the original song was just right. But for Fleming and the Boston audience, the lyrics needed some tweaking. In fact, for his version, he replaced the lyrics with Bruins references -- except for the signature chorus of "black and yellow, black and yellow."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11166/1153722-53-0.stm?cmpid=steelers.xml#ixzz1PKQZ7Hcp

First of all, I've always hated "Black and Yellow." Anyone from Pittsburgh should know that we're Black and Gold, not Black and Yellow. And is the entire state of Massachusetts filled with cheaters and thieves?