Half of rap duo Black Star / TUE 3-19-19 / Diplomatic controversy of 1790s

Constructor: Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Medium ? (oversized 16x15) (3:45)

THEME: alphabet — theme answers contain consecutive letters of the alphabet from A to Z

Theme answers:

• EASY AS ABC (18A: Simple, simple, simple [1,2,3])
• MOS DEF (19A: Half of the rap duo Black Star [4,5,6])
• WEIGH-IN (27A: Prefight ritual [7,8,9])
• DJ KHALED (29A: Singer with the 2010 3x platinum single "All I Do Is Win" [10,11])
• FILM NOIR (42A: Dark movie genre [12,12,14,15])
• BACK-UP QB (53A: Substitute for Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers, informally [16,17])
• PR STUNT (55A: Silly marketing ploy designed to get attention [18,19,20])
• UV WAVE (66A: Tiny bit of sunlight, for short [21,22,23])
• XYZ AFFAIR (68A: Diplomatic controversy of the 1790s [24,25,26])

Word of the Day: DJ KHALED —

Khaled Mohamed Khaled (born November 26, 1975), better known by his stage name DJ Khaled, is an American DJ, songwriter, record producer, media personality, and record executive. [...] In 2015 and early 2016, Khaled gained worldwide attention as a media personality, and subsequently attained a large following on social media. This foresaw the release of his ninth studio album Major Key in 2016. The album attained wholesale critical and commercial success; it debuted atop the Billboard 200, it was certified gold, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. He released his tenth studio album, Grateful, in 2017, which contained the singles "I'm the One" and "Wild Thoughts", which charted at number one and number two on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and was also certified platinum. His eleventh album, Father of Asahd, is due to be released in 2019.

Outside of music, Khaled has also gained success as a writer, with his book The Keys featuring on the New York Times Best Seller list. He has also featured as an actor, starring in Spies in Disguise (2019), and is due to appear in Bad Boys for Life (2020). (wikipedia)

So we can start with the good. Some of these themers, as stand-alone answers, regardless of theme, are just good. Whatever gets you to put DJ KHALED in a grid is good. Pretty sure that's the only "DJKH" letter string available right now. BACK-UP QB, also nice. And I'm all for FILM NOIR, whenever you wanna give it to me. But the theme itself, just ... walking through the alphabet? ... that didn't do much for me. WEIGH-IN? Not really showy enough. And what is with that extra damn "U"—the one shared by PR STUNT and UV WAVE? It's bizarre. Because UV WAVE is already not great (I know UV better as "rays," not "waves"), and you could've made that answer VW GOLF or VW BUGS and kept your damn alphabet streak perfectly intact, because there's *already* an alphabetical "U" in the answer PR STUNT. This is obvious, right? I don't know how people (any of them ... any of the people) don't see this and fix it. It's fixable. It just means a new SW corner. No big whoop. I mean, I still wouldn't have loved this theme, but at least it would've worked. With a dull routine, you *really* have to stick the landing.


The real problem with this puzzle is the fill. That's an evergreen sentence if there ever was one. Yet again, I don't know why polishing the grid is not (apparently) anyone's priority. We're falling back on ODA now? ODA? And SEISMO!? Hey kids, it's SEISMO, the Shaky Clown. No, he's supposed to be like that, kids! Oh, kids, don't cry! Why are you running away!? Come back, kids! SEISMO loves you! Seriously, though, prefixes should never ever be that long. SEISMO is the dumbest thing I've seen in a while. ASDOI? Please find your brother SODOI and then both of you go away forever. ALTI, yuck. ONAT, same. ATTWO? Now you're just throwing random phrases out there. This is not the worst puzzle I ever DIDST do, but it had me wincing a lot. More negative than positive today, I'm afraid, though, again, DJ KHALED is making the grid real hard to hate.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]