On Tuesday, Genius released a video of “Panda” rapper Desiigner reading the lyrics to his hit song in an attempt to clarify any confusion about the words. Now, the production team 88 Rising has put their own spin on the song with a re-imagined music video, using live performance footage of the G.O.O.D. Music rapper to make it look like it’s now set in… a neon lit Chinese club? The visual opens with a documentary style clip describing the panda as China’s national treasure, before referring to a “new panda on the rise.”
As Desiigner performs, the lyrics are translated to Mandarin subtitles, but the most entertaining parts of the video are the crazy animations explaining some of the best references in the song — such as slang words like lean, hammers, and percs — with tongue-in-cheek, broken English subtitles. For example, lean is translated to “purple happy, sleep beverage,” while Tony Montana is the “God of white power.”
It’s a funny and creative twist on a song which has hung around way longer than many people would’ve imagined. Videos like this one will go a long way toward making people forget about the Future comparisons. It’ll be interesting to see what 88 Rising comes up next.
Watch the video and check out some of our favorite translations below.
