Last month, DJ Khaled took his jetski out for a spin in Miami, got lost, dodged police and Snapchatted the whole misadventure to his 2 million-odd followers, prompting amusingly po-faced news stories in the Daily Mail and USA Today. It was the coronation of the Miami music magnate as the current king of the rap meme, which in recent years has become an integral part of hip-hop culture.
It all began for Khaled when he released the video to his 2014 single Hold You Down, featuring a mid-song interlude where he tells a baffled-looking woman: “You smart. You loyal. You grateful. I appreciate that,” before handing over wads of cash and showing off his headphone range to her. The video was eyelid-clawingly awful, and it exploded online. Khaled realised that this sort of “so bad it’s good” memery (snappy phrases, cartoonish imagery) is a swift route to infamy and now regularly fires off videos of him rubbing cocoa butter into his cleavage and shouting life-coaching tips. The New York Times has written approvingly of his social media savvy, while the White House quoted his emoji slogans on Snapchat this week.
Khaled clearly has one eye on Drake, master of the memescape. By looking variously sad and camp at NBA games, the Canadian rapper – perhaps knowingly – prompted a deluge of piss-taking photos online. Then came his much-publicised “battle” with rap rival Meek Mill, which inspired Instagram meme stars such as Daquan to upload new gags every few minutes. Finally, there was his Hotline Bling video, its rollneck-clad dancing calculated to generate as many gifs as possible. Tanisha Scott, who choreographed the video, said: “We were looking at playbacks, and Drake was like, ‘This is totally going to be a meme’ … He knew what was going to happen.”
Many other rappers have been following Drake’s example. When Rick Ross told Tim Westwood in 2014: “I eat pears now, and shit like that,” a magnum of Vines gushed forth with fond mockery. Da Boss has since featured Khaled in his Snapchats, suggesting a buddy comedy may only be one brainstorm away. It works the other way, too: Atlanta duo Rae Sremmurd took the wildly popular “this could be us but you playin” meme and made it the chorus for their hit This Could Be Us.
These artists know their market: rap fans are among the keenest memers, sharing Photoshopped disses at the slightest notice of beef; the website HipHopDX has a weekly round-up called All Eyez On Memes. Dapper rap chap Future even has a personal meme squad, #FutureHive, a group of fans who bombard Twitter with souped-up images in celebration of him.
You could argue that hip-hop is cheapened by all this horseplay, but it’s also making normal people an integral part of rap culture with a little as a cry-laugh emoji. So crack out the Impact font, embrace your inner teenage brat, and start lampooning overweight middle-league MCs online. As DJ Khaled would say: Bless up!
