What the yams? The yams is the Nintendo Power that be.
That’s according to this new Super Mario Brothers-themed remix (mash-up? edit?) of Kendrick Lamar’s “King Kunta,” which gives the 2015 Song Of The Year contender an upbeat 8-bit vibe that may or may not go over too well on the streets of Compton. The standout To Pimp A Butterfly track gets along well with some 1986 video game blips and bleeps, and the result is a 95-second twirl around the flagpole courtesy of VictoryLaptop.
Response to the production of the track seems to be mixed, but it’s still a cheeky crowd pleaser. And only in 2015 can Italian plumbers be dropping beats for one of hip-hop’s best voices, but clearly there are no rules about anything anymore so we all just need to chill. When the track dropped a few days ago, A.V. Club went all in:
There is no obvious connection between “King Kunta” and the Super Mario Bros. theme, other than the Lamar/Mario pun. One could theorize, however, that both Lamar’s 2015 single and the indestructible Nintendo franchise are built around paradoxes. The very title of Kendrick Lamar’s song is an oxymoron, as it combines a royal title with the name of a fictional slave from Alex Haley’s novel and subsequent miniseries Roots. In this song, Kendrick Lamar is declaring himself to be both a king and a slave. Meanwhile, Mario is a seemingly humble plumber who, while not actually royalty, is an undeniably powerful and influential figure in the strange, pixelated universe he inhabits. Others might guess that some winking double entendre about mushrooms is being made here, but Kendrick Lamar is a noted teetotaler.
Listen to Kendrick Lamario Bros at your own peril.