Yo yo yo – listen up, my guys.

Making a really, really bad rap video in order to advertise something is not a good look, mkay? Skrrrrt.

How do we know this? Well, let’s start with that Mecer ad we covered yesterday, which featured every lazy, outdated and cliched South Africanism there is.

Was it a rap video? Was it a spoken poem? I think, as someone pointed on Twitter with the use of a South Africanism I am fond of, it was simply ‘hondkak’.

We thought that might be the last terrible rap advertisement we wrote about for a while, but then the US Army stepped up and said ‘hold my beer’.

This effort actually came out at the beginning of February, is titled “Giving All I Got”, and is a hot mess right from the start.

It’s clearly trying to tap into that 8 Mile vibe, but some things are best left alone.

Attention:

Sheesh, there is plenty to unpack there.

Let’s get a lyrical lowdown with the help of VICE:

“Education you gon’ get. No doubt we stay fit. What’s life in these tan boots? Airborne, we stay lit,” he sings as paratroopers load into the plane behind him…

“Doin’ it now, like an acrobat I’m flipin’ the script like flipping through pictures on Flickr,” he spits. “If you wanna grow up, then start with the one in the mirror.”

…“Uniform: paid for. Electric bill: paid for. Water bill: paid for.”

That last bit is an actual line from an actual Army recruitment video. Go back and watch from the one-minute mark above, in case you missed that.

How kind of the Army to pay for those goodies, hey?

In response to criticism, the Army had this to say in a statement:

“We are encouraging our recruiters to find creative ways to be more relatable to the qualified youth in their areas. These Soldiers wanted to use music as a way to relate to youth and show them that you can be a Soldier and still be an individual…This is one small piece of the many new, creative ways our Soldiers are testing to see what helps us connect with today’s youth.”

Can’t help but think of this clip from 30 Rock:

Now we wait for the Army’s next video, which is more than likely going to include that ‘flossing’ dance from Fortnite.

[source:vice]