I should state right off the bat that I’m not really a fan of Brooklyn-based rap trio Das Racist. It’s not that I hate them or anything, I just have never really been into comedic music. And that’s what Das Racist does, I think. Actually, I don’t really know what Das Racist does. They are completely unconventional and certainly don’t fit into any of the neat little boxes many artists do. In fact, I’m not sure that even the members of the group can put a label on what it is they do, based on an interview Das Racist’s Himanshu Suri said in a 2009 interview.
We’re not making music that’s instantly appealing. We dabble with nonsequitors, dadaism, repetition, repetition. We make dance music while talking about not-dancey things. We say things that on the surface can seem pretty dumb but it’s a mask on some Paul Laurence Dunbar shit for actual discontent with a lot of shit in the world. Further, not a lot of people want to hear rappers talk about Dinesh D’Souza being a punk, Eddie Said, Gayatri Spivak being dope or even know who they are. A lot of people hear Pizza Hut Taco Bell and then have preconceived notions about our entire body of work that fall prettty flat if you ask me. But yeah, we seem to be pretty polarizing.
With all of that said, Das Racist began to win me over when I first heard “Michael Jackson’ a few weeks ago. And now they’ve released a video to accompany the song that is completely random and absurd that they’ve kind of won me over even more. I’m not exactly ready to call myself a fan, but I’m getting there.
Enjoy…
