Taylor Swift becomes an A$AP rock hit – to the annoyance of Swifties

hip hop
“Tailor Swif” goes viral – to the annoyance of Swifties

This video is like a fever dream: a dog is driving a car while a naked man lights a cigarette on the hood. A yeti visits a public toilet where a rabbit is bathing in the sink next to a glass of red wine. Shortly afterwards, a dolphin emerges from a puddle on the street, an old lady wears cigarettes in her hair like curlers while a horse sits on the sofa next to her, and a bald man with pigtails falls through the parquet floor from below; instead of feet, he has two giant toes. In a diner, hand grenades are fried like chips, rockets shoot into the sky behind skyscrapers. Then at the end: an explosion. Song over, audience wakes up.

It is a flood of images that make you dizzy, a road movie like a Formula 1 race. At the wheel: the American rapper A$AP Rocky, who guides you through all these scenes. He drives past a bear in a bathtub, then dances backwards on the road before suddenly throwing himself onto the asphalt to avoid being hit by a car that flies over him. A$AP Rocky's video for the song “Tailor Swif” shatters all notions of normality: every few seconds something bizarre, surreal, irritating, sometimes even disturbing happens. After three minutes you feel as if your brain has been on a rollercoaster.

A$AP Rocky, Taylor Swift and the art of confusion

In December 2021, A$AP Rocky shot the video for “Tailor Swif” in Kyiv, also shortly before Russia attacked Ukraine. The rapper only released it at the end of August. Within a few days, it had been clicked on more than ten million times on YouTube alone – which may also be due to the fact that the title is somewhat optimized for internet searches: It reads as if someone had misspelled the name of Taylor Swift, one of the most googled musicians in the world, and suggests that the song could be inspired by her. After all, A$AP Rocky mentioned in the chorus: “I'm too fast, don't tell Taylor about that shit (Swift, yeah).”

There may also be many fans who click on the video by chance. Some Swifties therefore consider the 35-year-old rapper to be a copycat. They accuse him of deliberately using Taylor Swift's fame and reach to land a viral hit. The displeasure may also be due to the fact that A$AP Rocky is friends with Kanye West, who Taylor Swift still doesn't have a good opinion of. The reason: When she wanted to give a speech when she won the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009, Kanye West stormed onto the stage, took the microphone from her hand and announced that Beyoncé deserved the award.

Drug dealer, rapper, family man

A$AP Rocky also made negative headlines for a long time. His childhood sounds like it came out of the script of a Netflix series. The rapper, whose real name is Rakim Athelaston Mayers, grew up in Harlem. His father ended up in prison for drug dealing, his mother in various women's shelters. Mayers dealt marijuana and crack in the Bronx until he became a member of the Harlem hip-hop collective A$AP Mob and decided to stop dealing drugs for the sake of his career. A$AP Rocky later rapped on songs by Selena Gomez, Lana Del Rey, Alicia Keys – and Rihanna, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2020 and has two children.

A$AP Rocky has repeatedly come into conflict with the law. During the “Made in America Festival 2013” he hit a woman who later sued him. Six years later, A$AP Rocky was arrested in Stockholm because he and his companions were alleged to have beaten and kicked a young man. Even then-US President Donald Trump got involved and wrote on Twitter: “Just spoke to Kanye West about the imprisonment of his friend A$AP Rocky. I will call the very talented Swedish Prime Minister to see what we can do.” At the beginning of the year, the rapper was in court again, and during an argument in Hollywood in November 2021 he is alleged to have shot a friend. The verdict is still pending.

Anyone who regularly ends up in court and counts Kanye West and Donald Trump among their friends has a hard time being a popular figure. But that doesn't really matter to A$AP Rocky right now. His plan seems to be working, his song has millions of clicks. And fans of Taylor Swift who happen to come across “Tailor Swif” online don't have to worry either. The video is just too good for that.

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