For the last three months, I have been on the tail of something big. This endeavour has been no small feat and now at the end of my journey I have more questions than answers. Buckle yourselves up because I’m about to tell you a story which may or not be a completely over the top conspiracy theory.
Picture the scene, it’s the last week of May. Exams are looming and I’ve been living off of Tesco meal deals and Subways for the last month, and at least half my revision has taken place in a pub or while playing Mario Kart. My body is in shambles; I haven’t worked out in weeks and I’m beginning to develop noodle arm syndrome. I awake to the sound of my phone alarm before promptly sleeping for another three hours.
I am weak, my immune system is shot and I’ve got that weird over tired groggy nap feeling you get when you sleep in too much and have a none existence sleep schedule. Now there are two known cures for this broken state of being. The first is the obvious bacon sandwich, but alas, my bacon is two weeks out of date and the shop is down, like, stairs. Obviously, a bacon sandwich is out of the picture. The second is to listen to the most upbeat playlist you have. I open Spotify on my phone, and I go to my Upbeat playlist.
I listen to the first song and… Then as Busted’s rendition of Build Me Up Buttercup comes to a close, Despacito – Remix featuring Justin Bieber (I will not make any apologies I think it sounds good and has loads of words that rhyme with burrito).
But wait, I think to myself. I double check my phone. I look, confused, again at my phone and assure myself I am seeing what I am seeing. I sit bolt upright, Despacito is the third song on my playlist. I do not have shuffle turned on. Returning to the main page for my playlist, I see the horror. Continuing to look through all the existing songs on Spotify before realising it’s really happened.
Burnin’ Up by the Jonas Brothers has been removed from Spotify. Not the album it’s on, not any other original song (thank God for the safety of Hold On and Love Bug). I spend countless hours of revision time on Google trying to discover the reason. Nothing. There’s even a link to the song on Spotify on the first page of results. This link, much like Britain’s plan for Brexit, doesn’t work.
I scoured the internet for any idea of why the song has been taken off and begin to devote serious man hours into spreading the news of this tragedy. Whoever has done this never left a paper trail, whoever has done this must have known how to pull the strings. But who would do such a thing?
WELL, I HAVE THE ANSWER FOR YOU.
Now it would be easy to make the rational assumption that this was someone like Trump or maybe worse; the Illuminati. But it goes higher than that. This goes all the way to the top, past the bonus Jonas, Nick, Joe even Kevin. I’m talking Big Rob.
Robert “Big Rob” Feggans (if for some reason you didn’t know) was the Jonas Brothers’ bodyguard as well as starring alongside them on their Disney show also as their bodyguard. He also did work for Britney Spears and Fifth harmony and in 2012 confirmed on his Twitter he was no longer working with the Brothers in June 2012. Now, why is this important?
GOOD GOSH DARN QUESTION!
Because, ladies and gentlemen, Big Rob RAPS ON BURIN’ UP. He’s that guy that randomly (and rather unnecessarily) begins to rap halfway through the song, but he is not given a feature credit in the title. Here is my theory on what happened.
Burnin’ Up releases, it’s amazing. Big Rob takes part in the music video and goes on to star in the Jonas Brothers’ TV show. He goes on tour, he comes out does his rap bit, guards some bodies and goes to bed. Life is good.
But something happened in 2012. Big Rob left the brothers. We don’t know how or why but it happened. So, Big Rob is there in his room reminiscing of days gone by with the Jonas’, blasting out Burnin’ Up. Eventually, he begins to blast it less and moves on and begins to live his best life. UNTIL…
2013 the Jonas Brothers split up. The world will never be the same again just like when Burr shot Hamilton and then sang about it on Broadway. Years pass and the Jonas’ each go on to do their own thing. Kevin has kids and gets swol (jacked/hench/ripped/cut/strong), Joe releases a song about having intercourse on a beach and Nick does some other stuff and somehow ends up in a Jumanji sequel.
December 20th 2017, Nick Jonas enters the silver screen in Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle. Big Rob is a busy man he misses the cinematic release. But makes sure to watch it when it comes out on DVD towards the end of March 2018. But like I said my main man Robert Feggans is out there working, clerking for his late mother’s landlord trading sugar cane and rum and all the things he can’t afford (really if you haven’t listened to Hamilton you should). So it takes him another month to watch it. He gets nostalgic seeing little Nicky up there with the big boys like Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black pretending to be a teenage girl.
He opens up Spotify and goes to listen to Burnin’ Up and he sees something he never released. The title of the song and no feature credit?!? But he made that song. All the excitement on tour for him. This was his magnum opus, his mark on the world, his Tony award-winning rap based musical Hamilton. Anger begins to fester and he picks up his phone and dials the first number he can think of. His lawyer. BOOM a month later after words with Spotify and the Jonas Brothers’ all doing their own thing, what do they care if one song gets removed from Spotify. And so just like that Burnin’ Up became dust in the wind on my Spotify playlist.
Now I should explain since there is no paper trail and I spent a significant amount of time working out whether Big Rob was actually still alive (since a different guy called Big Black happened to die a while back who also was a bodyguard). I have no evidence of this but it just adds up, this is all classified as opinion and under Article 10 of the European Court of Human rights I get freedom of speech, therefore you can’t do me for defamation (please don’t sue me). So, this may all be a conspiracy theory, but regardless of this, my playlist will never be the same again.
To prove I’m not crazy here is a picture of it on Spotify in 2017 screen capped from my phone.
