Riff Raff’s “Tip Toe Wing In My Jawwdinz” video has arrived and I… don’t know how to feel as an intelligent black woman who has spent a decade as a music critic. On one hand, dude’s entire package is a joke based on black culture; on the other, dude is like an In Living Color skit gone terribly right—he’s hilarious.
Before you scream at your laptop, hear me out.
Hip-Hop was created by black and brown folks and we are sharing the pot with everyone these days. Blame Eminem or whomever else you want, but the culture that began in the Bronx is global now and open to satire, even if it’s in human form. Amidst drag queens like Iggy Azalea—Rich Juzwiak called this in April—who is not funny because she wants us to take her Charli Baltimore impression seriously, Riff Raff knows he is ridiculous and just goes with it. In fact, he plays it up to the literal hilt. The song is called “Tip Toe Wing In My Jawwdinz” for fuck’s sake, and there are models walking on their tip-toes in the video. There is a praying mantis which I’m sure was drugged before this video shoot began and… what is Christina Milian doing at the end?