Das Racist, Heems and Kool A.D., their chosen collective name a commercial perversion from the start, score an unexpected hit in 2008. It blows up on My Space (I know, at this point that sounds like The Jetsons), which means it has been streamed enough that now it has its own page on Wikipedia. Heems and AD are on their cell phones in "the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell on Jamaica Avenue" in NYC but can't find each other.
They sound perplexed but also like mildly amused stoners, they could be Harold and Kumar at White Castle, but the punky insistence of the hook over and over urges annoyance and speculation. Maybe they're celebrating and/or satirizing fast food combo places, like Black rappers naming special places in their home neighborhoods. Like Dick's in Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Posse on Broadway." My favorite guess is a suggestion that there are actually two combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell's on Jamaica Avenue, as if they'd never met before. Real mysterious like Repo Man! The song is simultaneously mocking and a irrepressibly goofy dance track, two South Asians from Brooklyn doing their hiphop best. And not bad at that. I think Backpacker hiphop applies but I'm not entirely up on these matters. Anyway, a sly banger, Heems tapping an epic and massive dance club record from 1991, Masters At Work "The Ha Dance (Pumpin' Dubb)."
Das Racist were unable to match the success of their debut viral sensation but I really like Heem's Eat Pray Thug album from 2015. Raw and cringingly catchy stuff about the immigrant experience before the fascist purge began. Hopefully they've reached that point in their lives where their one-hit wonder is a source of pride as it ought to be.
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