You probably have heard of Das Racist if you were one of the 1.5 million who stumbled upon their hit song "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell," released nearly two and a half years ago. In the song, the two rappers of the group, Victor "Kool AD" Vazquez and Himanshu "Heems" Suri, annoyingly do a back-and-forth dialogue involving--you guessed it--a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. This isn't the first time we've seen artists work on rapping based around comedy, as The Lonely Island, Beastie Boys, and even Lil' B, have done it all before.
But there's something deeply engaging about Das Racist's style that allows me to replay their songs over and over again. Their usage of witty wordplay (Cracker in the chocolate, that's human Pocky on "Rainbow in the Dark"), repetition (Yeah what's really good, what's really food, what's really good on the bizarrely titled "Chicken and Meat") and lazy delivery and flow (You should never argue with a lalalalalalalala you oughta know right now on "You Oughta Know") might throw some people off, but I think it's a breath of fresh air compared to what everyone is going for in today's hip-hop.
What is most intriguing about Das Racist, though, is their ability to meld together dance beats and samples with the history of hip-hop and our culture, seamlessly. By listening to a few verses on "Rainbow in the Dark" we can hear Heems and Victor rapping about, but not limiting themselves to, Joe Pesci, Stephen Hawking's It, cave-aged cheese, Mastercard, White Castle, T-Pain, Kool G, weed rap, and Don King. It's everything that is seemingly unconventional about hip-hop, yet Das Racist make it look like they've been experts in this field for years.
Even though they are labeled as "joke rap," if you look past their "Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" schtick, Das Racist are far from what we perceive them to be. To this day, I'm still not sure if it's all a big joke or not to Das Racist (We're not joking, just joking, we are joking, just joking, we're not joking on the aptly titled "hahahaha jk?"), but I know for sure; they're definitely serious about one thing: making really good hip-hop.
Das Racist has two free mixtapes out that you can still download here and here. Their album "Relax" was released September 13.
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