Beloved readers, a challenge! Try to figure which of the following are not lyrics from a Pretty Ricky song:

a) “Now you on da phone, like damn I made a mess/

Got my hands in my pants, man I love phone sex.”

b) “Work that muscle (muscle)/ You know what muscle (muscle)/

That p^$$y muscle (muscle).”

c) “Your love’s like honey, sticky and slow/

Your love’s like ice cream, creamy and slow.”

I’m sorry, readers, that was actually a trick question. The answer is that all of these are from Pretty Ricky songs (“On the Hotline,” “Personal Trainer” and “Love Like Honey,” respectively), and they’re all featured on the group’s horrendous sophomore effort, “Late Night Special.” One might call it a sophomore slump, but the freshman cut was never that special to begin with. Actually, it was horrible. And so is “Late Night Special,” which no self-respecting Yalie should buy.

Now, don’t get angry with Pretty Ricky — at least the boys from Miami never ask to be taken seriously. Nor do they claim to be anatomists. Nor do they ask to be understood. Nor do they ask for world peace. No, all Pretty Ricky asks is for one thing: fornication. Over and over. No, not even ask — they demand it! Every single song is about these musicians requesting sex, employing exhausted cliches (multiple references are made to “riding it like a pony”), cheesy looping tracks (note to producers: using chimes is stupid. Using chimes on five songs in one album is inexcusable) and harmonies. Yes, harmonies. Pretty Ricky is a hybrid of rap and R&B, which basically means that someone writes verses for them to rap, and then someone else writes choruses for them to sing and then they combine the two to make a Pretty Ricky song.

But alas, Pretty Ricky does one very commendable thing in this album. They talk about what they’re going to give the woman (Slick ‘Em often talks about how he’s eager to “go down,” and how “the south is the best”), rather than just complacently demand blowjobs, like some rappers. Still this is no reason to buy the album. If a Yale girl — feeling a need to satisfy some feminist agenda — wanted to know what a guy would do to get in bed with her, she’d really just have to ask almost any desperate Yale boy.

Perhaps you have never listened to a commercial radio station between two and five o’clock in the morning. If that’s the case, then you wouldn’t know that these hours — after the last tired DJ has finally signed off, when the broadcaster starts playing prerecorded sets of songs and advertisements, when listener count drops to almost zero — represent an especially magical time for R&B radio stations. The usual thugged-out fare gives way to the station’s secret stash of dirty, dirty love songs, songs with little musical merit save for their lyrics, which are perfect for making dirty, dirty love to. And, of course, the repetitive throbbing beats, for those nights when you’re too drunk to make out the lyrics. It’s songs like these that litter “Late Night Special,” an album that should be ignored unless, as was just stated, you are drunk. And having sex.