Play the video and you realise that this isn’t just more of the same, this is actually something subversive and in places silly, but it also raises some interesting questions. For a start, at times, our musical protagonist looks more like a Harvard undergraduate than a rhyming street poet, he sings of Fanta rather than the usual Cristal and he raps about just how punctual he is. And of course the question is…why not? Why should rap music be the territory of macho street hustlers, blinged up to the max and singing about how much cooler/richer/harder/more sexed up they are than everyone else.
And that is what is so great about the video, rather than the usual collection of cliche poses and textbook moves straight out of the book of gangster rap, Sauve Youngin would rather take his hi-jinx and shenanigans to the local mall, get a burger, ride the lift and generally make a fool of himself. Juxtapose that with the more expected moves, smoking a cigar…or a fry, and rap about his bitches and the satire becomes more obvious.
And even if Sauve Youngin is just having a bit of fun, the song in general and the video in particular does help to take the genre out of the hands of misogynistic, image driven, would be criminals, or at least those who wish to project such an image and remind us that music belongs to everyone. Why not have prep school rap? What next…obesity pop, alt-rock bands in onsies, academic driven hip-hop? Bring it on….
