Words by Gabriel Spadaccini
Brooklyn rapper Desiigner has been inescapable in the last month with the overnight success of ‘Panda’, but he took his sweet time in putting out an official music video for the track, and when it finally arrived, we were slightly disappointed to find it contained neither real pandas nor bodacious Atlanta broads.
You should probably watch said video because it features Kanye West drifting in a brand-new BMW X6 and he looks like he’s having the time of his life aka he’s smiling, and there’s also a plethora of other ‘Panda’-related content that’s surfaced everywhere on the internet in the last few weeks. We have Desiigner vomiting into a dab while performing extremely faded one night, literally picking up a disabled person and putting him on his back during a show, and, thanks to Genius, reading through his song’s at-times incoherent lyrics at a slower pace.
What may be the best of all, however, arrived a day ago, with a live performance of the track created by production team 88 Rising. Not only does the video feature a narrated intro with real live pandas, the Australian model Lily May Mac and Disney singalong-esque Mandarin subtitles, but it’s also got hilarious flash cards to explain Desiigner’s raps. Here are a few examples: ‘Montana – god of white powder’ / ‘Versace – badge of unnecessary luxury’ / ‘Bugatti – expensive space vehicle’.
The production style is trippy and bombastic (at times leaving you feeling like you’re in the middle of a Yu-Gi-Oh! duel), but most importantly, it proves once again that the 19-year-old Desiigner can deliver characteristically spastic performances of ‘Panda’ pretty much in his sleep. Plus now we know that the rapper’s signature adlib can be translated into Mandarin. Who knew?
Check out the video below – it’s sure to be a learning experience.
