Satirical Hip Hop / Meme Rap

About

Satirical Hip Hop (also referred to as Ironic Rap or Meme Rap) refers to a sub-genre of hip hop that is created with the intention of becoming viral, normally as a parody of popular genres like trap music, but with lo-fi production, simplistic music videos, lazy rhymes, and intentionally stereotypical lyrics. The satirical nature of an ironic rap song is often intentionally left out of its title, cover image, and/or description, in order to catch listeners by surprise.

History

Weird Al Yankovic

Satirical hip hop music has existed since at least the 1990s, when satirical pop stars like Weird Al became popular for direct parodies of specific popular hip hop songs.

Lil B

However, meme rap as a fully-formed subgenre only became popular with the success of "Wonton Soup", the first single from American rapper Lil B, released on August 11th, 2010.

The song's original video received over 12 million views, 50k likes, and 54k comments by December 2014. It also received 30k dislikes, and many negative comments describing the stealthiness of the parody. The song features lines that would be considered stereotypical of the hip hop genre, as well as poor rhymes and a lazy flow.^[9] This style has defined Lil B's body of work as well as Meme Rap in general.

Tyler the Creator

After the success of Lil B, many other artists began ascribing to the same lo-fi self-parodying style of music. On Sep 24, 2011, Tyler The Creator,^[4] under the moniker "Young Nigga", released a song named "Come Through Looking Clean"^[6] which was a parody of mainstream hip hop music. The song draws heavy inspiration from Lil B's music, who is said to be one of Tyler's favorite artists.

3PAC

On May 21st, 3Pac uploaded a video titled “3Pac Freestyles After Being a Boss At Gym,” in which the rapper shows off a selection of protein-based supplements that he regularly takes for his workout regime before launching into a cringeworthy freestyle rap that can be characterized as a work of satirical hip hop. However, 3pac didn't rise to viral fame until July 2013 with the release of the song “PUSSY ASS HOES”, later rebranded as “EMINEM RAP GODBERZERK DISS”, “THE REAL RAP GOD” and eventually settling for “RAP GOD" (shown below).

Yung Lean

The Swedish rapper Yung Lean and his associates, called SADBOYS, was the next to become popular. SADBOYS released the mixtape Unknown Death 2002 with the single "Hurt" on June 13th, 2015, which featured many references to 90s and early 2000s products. The song features the same sloppy delivery that Lil B is famous for and has received more than 6.3 million views as of February 2016.

Online Presence

After a few years, the term "Meme Rap" was used as a term to insult rap music and artists, especially on the 4chan board /mu/ (Music), due to the constant spamming of said artists on the imageboard. The term has since become popular outside of the board, and is now often used as a derogatory term against popular underground artists.

"Essential charts," /mu/'s version of popular music listings, were created to showcase meme rap ironically. The charts typically featured rappers and albums that were popular on the board, despite not intentionally making parodic music.

Youtube has created a playlist titled "Meme Rap" featuring an assortment of satirical rappers.^[8] The satirical site Encyclopedia Dramatica includes an article on Ironic Rap.^[11]

Notable Examples

Other popular meme rappers include Riff Raff,^[3] Die Antwoord,^[5] Das Racist,^[12] Lil Ugly Mane, and Viper the Rapper.

Search Interest

External References