Das Racist made their late-night TV premiere last night on Conan with "Michael Jackson," the lead-single off the group's first official studio album Relax (that doesn't include their first two mixtapes, which are still available for free on their website) and, well, it was terrible. No one who saw this performance just became a Das Racist fan.
The NYC trio looked too weird to be interesting or clever, and methodically out of place. Their reputation for their other live shows isn't much better, and with the release of Relax and some Youtube promotion, they've garnered there fair share of detractors. For almost every fan praising their lyrical depth and subtle creativity, there are those who see them as nothing more than a hipster-branded joke rap band that doesn't joke about the things they think are funny.
Makes sense. The mere fact that Das Racist is most people's first exposure to a rap group that isn't white or black is something incredibly rare in the states, and it spins off an unfair perception. That being said, super-intricate rapping with sole focus on lyricism never truly caught on, just like it never caught only completely with ... any genre really.
However, Das Racist (Twitter) seem to revel in it, frequently posting anytime someone says something negative about the group and just truly not trying to give a shit. In a way, they live off the aesthetic extreme of what we consider rap music: not black or white, but racially based; intricate and profound, but comical. It's to a point where you can't take them too seriously, and that's even to the point where you took them seriously in the first place.
Will it last? It's been almost two years since the release of their first mixtape Shut Up, Dude. And if there's any consent, they're more popular now than ever. Your call.
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