![]() There was a further surge in popularity after a bizarre interview from Complex’s daily news show ‘Everyday Struggle’ in June last year. Memes thrive off of the funny, catchy and bizarre, and Uzi managed to be all three at once. The track also featured the massive meme potential of Lil Uzi Vert opening his verse by screaming “YA YA YA YA YA”. Riffs on the opening line “Raindrop, drop top” made their way around the internet at record speed – becoming so prevalent they merited their own Buzzfeed list – and with streaming figures counting towards chart positioning, every curious YouTube view brought the track further into the mainstream, and closer to number one. One of the key differences between the two tracks was that in the intervening years hip-hop memes had made it into the mainstream. This base became the springboard for ‘Bad and Boujee’ in 2016, which was Migos’ first track to hit number one in the US. Migos originally found fame thanks to their track ‘Versace’ in 2013, which, helped along by a Drake remix, peaked at number 99 on the Billboard Hot 100. Having said this, there’s no doubt that this grassroots internet activity boosted both Drake and Future’s profile pre- release and raised excitement levels when the joint project was announced, giving sales a welcome boost on release.ĭrake, Future and ‘WATTBA’ show artists using and generating meme attention, but when it comes to single tracks benefitting from the meme-as-music-promotion trend, Migos’ ‘Bad and Boujee’ is possibly the ultimate example. At this point it’s worth mentioning that both Drake and Future had number one albums under their belt already, with ‘If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late’ and ‘DS2’ respectively, so the success of ‘WATTBA’ can’t be explained by memes alone. These parallel meme movements combined with the release of Drake and Future’s joint project ‘WATTBA’ in September 2015, which spawned hundreds of duo-related memes and hit number one on the Billboard 200 album chart. The internet duly went wild at this relentless stream of high quality music, and soon there were even more Future memes than mixtapes, with the star’s face being photoshopped onto sports stars, music icons and even Jesus Christ. #Futurehive was an internet fanbase formed in the wake of Future’s solid gold run of mixtapes – ‘Monster’, ‘Beast Mode’ and ‘56 Nights’, topped off with his third studio album ‘DS2’. ![]() During a feud with Meek Mill in 2015 – in which the Philly rapper revealed Drake was collaborating with other writers on his music – Drake employed the brilliantly petty tactic of running a slide show of crowd sourced Meek Mill memes behind him during his performance of diss track ‘Back To Back’ at his annual OVO Fest in Toronto.ĭuring – and just before – Drake was weaponising memes for the first time, Future was discovering just how powerful a mobilised and internet savvy fanbase could be, courtesy of #Futurehive. From ‘Wheelchair Drake’ way back in 2010 to the countless ‘Hotline Bling’ parodies a couple of years ago, The Toronto rapper has been the focus of so many memes that he has a page with multiple sections on the website Know Your Meme.ĭrake has been one of the most successful at using the meme to their advantage. It would be impossible to talk about the topic without looking at the impact of Canadian megastar Drake. Hip-hop and meme culture are interlinked, that much is clear, but how and why has this happened? Tracks like ‘Bad and Boujee’, ‘Black Beatles’ and ‘Mask Off’ all benefitted hugely from viral memes, and pushed the artists behind them (Migos, Rae Sremmurd and Future respectively) into the mainstream spotlight in a big way. ![]()
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