You've really gotta hand it to Nintendo fans. Instead of just moping about not being able to trash talk in Mario Kart 8, they keep coming up with bigger and better ways to show off their skills. Not satisfied with taunting people in-game, one player has put his Mario Kart swagger to song:
It's a parody of Drake's recent hit "0 to 100," which he released earlier this summer. The man behind the track is Levar Allen, a Toronto-based musician who posts a lot of great gaming-themed tracks on his YouTube channel "levarslaysdragons." Looking at the lyrics, you can tell that Mr. Allen doesn't fuck around—whether he's on the mic or the racetrack:
Leave a hater spinning on an oil slick
We go 0 to 100 koopa, real quick
Kart skills real sick
I'm talking lap the whole field sick
Oh lord, no love for these chumps
Lightning before I jump
'Cause I really have no feelings, nah
Say hello to the villain
No good powerups in the place where I'm living
That's just how it is at the top
All I see are blue shells being aimed at my spot
They're playing catch up
But I'm not playing games with these lames I don't plan on being caught
Now everyone's behind me by at least a mile
Got all these races looking like they're just time trials
Cross the finish line, and I gotta sit and wait awhile
For every runner up, I wish they'd hurry up
They thought they could be champs, there's only one of me
They say it's lonely at the top, but these trophies keep me company
'Bout that life since the Super NES
You rookies on the Wii know you're dealing with a vet, show respect
For a point of comparison, here's the original track that Drake dropped earlier this summer:
Impressive tribute, right? I hate to admit this as a rap enthusiast and devout gamer, but the two don't always compliment each other all that gracefully. There are some awesome and unabashedly nerdy rappers out there like Mr. Lif, who can spit a whole verse about crushing it in Tekken 3. But for every awesome gaming reference buried in a Kendrick Lamar or Rick Ross song, there are a hundred regrettable parody tracks made by self-consciously terrible comedians-turned-rappers. (Apologies if you like nerdcore; I really don't.)
The real reason I'm particularly fond of Allen's track isn't just that it's actually really good, though. What I love about it is the way it captures the competitive energy that makes playing Mario Kart online such a fun and ferociously challenging experience at the same time. Plus, he managed to keep the lyrics so squeaky clean that even Nintendo couldn't justify taking them off the Miiverse. I, for one, am definitely going to be chanting "Say hello to the villain" to myself the next time I take Bowser out for a spin online.
In other news, I saw Drake perform his version of "0 to 100" last night in Queens and it was incredible.
Image by Chris Person
To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.