The summer – a time for act Sung loud on your railcar radio receiver , staycation binge - watching appearance you ’ve drop , and chilling out with moving-picture show theater air conditioning – is nearly over . We ’re not quick to say goodbye just yet : all this week we ’re giving shout - out toour pet pop - culture moment of summer 2016 , so that we can keep the salutary times rolling into the fall .
On Sunday night , Desiigner get at theMTV Video Music Awardsclad in a Salmon River - colored courtship with no shirt beneath his jacket . brook next to pre - show horde Lizzo on a microscope stage outside of Madison Square Garden , across the river from his Bedford - Stuyvesant neighborhood , the 19 - twelvemonth - erstwhile Brooklyn doorknocker looked resplendent , a gravelly voiced sunray pulsating through your TV screen . " I ’m trying to be cool down a little bit , " he enunciate , practically vibrate with vim . Desiigner is many thing . Chill is not one .
Granted , he has very footling to be chill about . In December last year , Desiigner uploaded " Panda , " a song with a beat by 22 - year - honest-to-goodness Manchester , UK manufacturer Adnan " Menace " Khan that he buy for $ 200 , to his YouTube and SoundCloud pageboy . As it bubbled up through the internet , the pound up all - Greek chorus runway caught the pinna of Kanye West , who taste over a arcminute of the song on " Father Stretch My Hands Pt . 2 " off his magnum opusThe Life of Pablo . If you nonchalantly watch over rap euphony , you probably first get a line the grimy heartbeat of " Panda " at West ’s much - hyped MSGalbum - release party and fashion showand cogitate , " What the underworld is this ? " Then you replay that part .
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In February , West signed the " Panda " MC to his G.O.O.D. Music recording label , and chop-chop , " Panda " was climbing up the Billboard Hot 100 chart . Unlike any of the tracks on West ’s album – or any call released by Future , the artist Desiigner is most often ( below the belt ) impeach of sounding like – " Panda " became the No . 1 song in America in May . Months later , it ’s still the song you ’re most potential to hear shell from a railroad car driving by on a red-hot Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . It ’s unavoidable , yet elusive . It ’s probably the song of summertime 2016 .
By any measurement , Desiigner is bear a great summer . sure enough , he release a ill incur mixtape in June , the repetitious and Mandrillus leucophaeus - derivativeNew English , but it did n’t bolt down his impulse so much as briefly pause it . That same calendar month hisXXL Freshman freestyle , typically a forgettable practice session in showmanship , became a modest viral sensation , leading toelegant cover , countlessremixes , and an almost febrile expectancy of an expanded version . When we finally catch the Mike Dean - producedstudio versionof " Timmy Turner , " it was equally as evocative and mysterious , a gurgling and chilling synth intermixture with a beat heart at the center . let go of in July , it chart at 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August , yield Desiigner his second top-40 hit this year . You could n’t call him a one - pip wonder anymore .
But what is it about the " Panda " artist that makes him so illustration of this particular second ? As the upper echelon of crucial contemporary artists –Rihanna , Drake , Beyoncé , Kanye West , Frank Ocean– becomes increasingly reliant on luxuriant album rollouts and semi - public partnerships with corporate streaming platforms , the singles chart remains the lieu where emerge young artist like Desiigner , Lil Uzi Vert , or Lil Yachty can break out . As Slate ’s Chris Molanphypointed out , the song ’s chart control mostly rely on " non - Vevo YouTube views . " That ’s how what essentially go like a mixtape rail can bubble to the open , upending the monotony of the chart .
Also , it ’s just catchy as pit . After months of listening to it , " Panda " still makes you desire to trunk - slam people . As a piece of euphony , it ’s one of the stranger , more splintered song to become such an enormous collision in recent years . Lacking the ballad - corresponding cadence of Fetty Wap ’s 2015 hip - hop chart hit " Trap Queen , " or the dancehall vibraharp of other 2016 hits like Drake ’s " One Dance " or Rihanna ’s " study , " " Panda " is all jagged boundary and throaty ad - libs . It ’s acute . When Desiigner perform the song , which he ’s done countless times this summertime , it look like he ’s trying to exorcize a demon . Maybe it ’s a panda demon .
Then there are the lyric poem : by now you in all likelihood lie with it ’s not about a genuine lesser panda . ( The recapitulate " bear cat / Ailuropoda melanoleuca / panda " line is a citation to the BMW X6 . ) At one point in the track , he says , " I ’ve catch broads in Atlanta , " but he ’s understandably not from Atlanta . " The fact is that Facebook is this lit : I did have a bitch in Atlanta , " hetold Genius . If you ’re generous , this is yet another example of A$ AP Rocky - like post - regional strike ; if you ’re not , it ’s another New York rapper taking the way of another city , and blowing up off the backbreaking work of others .
Where does Desiigner go from here ? First off , he ’s gotemojis to deal . This summer , he go to Central Park and playedPokémon GowithGQ , jump around the green pasturage , smile with fans , and make ad - libs as he take in a Pidgeotto . It ’s hard to watch the video and not pull a analog between the all-night teen rap sensation and the nomadic biz . Both the rise ofPokémon Goand the rise of Desiigner have come with lots of hand - wringing about lastingness . Is he just a fad ? It ’s inconceivable to know .
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There ’s money , celebrity , and acclaim out there , and Desiigner is trying to bewitch it all . He ’s diving in headfirst . As the Salmon River color of his suit suggested , he ’ll keep swim .
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