Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Song of the Day #288 - Riff Raff - Rap Game James Franco (ft. Deezus)

Non-stop through desert!/Salisbury steak sweater!/They figured I was kin to Chester/The way I chase cheddar!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlydTf5bJdo

Alright so I don't care about MOBAs at all but my friend shared some news that even I found exciting, namely that Arteezy and EternalEnvy are gonna be on the same team now. I don't know anything about what "Legends" these guys play in their "League" and I don't care. I just know that Arteezy is the one that brought Yung Lean to the unwashed multitudes, and has many memes associated with playing the most cancerous and memetic bangers he can on his stream at all times, and that EternalEnvy is a huge weeb that blows all his esports money on anime merch. They are basically living the dream, the only people who have achieved this level of financial success and fame and are using it at all in the way I would have. It's like... sorta frustrating that they're the only ones whereas afaik all other pro Moba players are just sorta wannabe "normies", and I'm sorta... outrageously jealous, of course, but mostly I'm happy, and happy to hear that they're together at last.

And to celebrate we're looking at... the best Riff Raff song of all time? Nah, that's prolly still the legendary Versace Python. This is definitely the best hook, though. Yesterday we were talking about how part of Lil Yachty's appeal is that you can easily imagine the story behind the song's creation. With Riff Raff, you get a sense that it was equally fun and casual, but you have... absolutely no idea why he's talking about what he's talking about. "Nonstop through desert" is sort of an incomplete cliche, like, you can imagine some sort of chase scene or hustle or something, but we aren't really sure. "Salisbury steak sweater" is a classic Riff Raff pattern, describing the colour of something via a food with a similar colour. He gets pretty into how this all works in this amazing video ("Later in the evening" is perhaps the best transition I have ever seen in professional speaking). But what the hell why is he talking about Salisbury steak? The final lines give us some lucidity with a pretty clear but hilarious and esoteric reference to a snack food mascot. The little flip up on the beat Now: can anyone put these lines together into any sort of coherent message? I have tried for almost 3 years now and I cannot.

It extends into the general verse, which is again just peak Riff, doing something no one else could imagine better than anyone could dream. The way that his flow mimics the sampled hook, you just KNOW that he's gonna end up repeating it in the verse, giving you some anticipation and making it seem all the more triumphant. Like the hook, it's just line after line that sounds somewhat sensible for that brief second between not thinking about it enough and thinking about it too much... where does it all come from? This relentless stream of imagery! Deezus's verse is much more traditional, but does a good job, lives up to the expectations of the track.

When this first came out I was pretty obsessed with it, probably my most played track of 2013. I spammed it all over a message board I frequent until a friend of mine commented this:
oh yeah so keat I just remembered something

a horrible, miserable, embarrassing thing

a horrible, miserable, embarrassing thing that is all your fault

you see, I went skiing for reading week

I'm a pretty adventurous skiier, and I like to go looking for remote glades and untouched powder

but Lake Louise was pretty skied out at the time so there wasn't much to find

after cutting through some really dense forest, I finally made it to this awesome clearing where no one had been since the last snowfall

there wasn't a single track disturbing the snow

as I glided smoothly over the virgin snow, I felt that I should say something in honour of that wondrous moment

or perhaps, I thought, I should sing something

and so I belted out

"NONSTOP THROUGH DESERT

SALISBURY STEAK SWEATER"

this is what you have done to me, keat

I hate you forever

ha ha haaaaaa.

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