Let it die, please.
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British comedian Michael Daapah, more widely known by his alter ego Big Shaq, has returned with his second release ‘Man Don’t Dance’. This new single is the follow up to last year’s viral grime hit ‘Mans Not Hot’, and whilst a year ago he was the one of the most notorious memes across the globe, his return seems much more forced and just generally unwanted.
It was impossible to miss ‘Mans Not Hot’ as soon as it hit social media after Big Shaq’s appearance on Charlie Sloth’s BBC 1Extra segment ‘Fire In The Booth’, with the faux-grime parody gaining international interest as one of the year’s biggest memes. Whilst the comedian’s breakthrough was widely adored and the lyrics are now etched into the memory of every millennial, like everything with the internet, it came to a prolonged, slow, and painful death. Months passed, and meme by meme Big Shaq became a withered monument of nostalgia. In this modern world of content renewing minute by minute, it comes as no surprise that Big Shaq has attempted to re-stamp his authority on internet culture, but this endeavour seems futile.
‘Man Don’t Dance’ is already strikingly similar to the rapper’s previous release in terms of the title, and musically there’s no revolutionary transformation. Altogether the single echoes the sense of a man who has found his fifteen minutes of fame and is desperately trying to cling on as he watches his new found attention rapidly dwindle before his eyes. In the intro Shaq reimagines nearly word for word parts of ‘Mans Not Hot’ with the lines “Big Shaq (raw sauce)/ It’s another one/ They said one and one is two/ That was me and you”. Essentially listening to this song is the modern day equivalent of rewatching an episode of Have I Got News For You on Dave that you’ve seen several times before. It’s just not funny anymore, if it ever really was.
‘Man Don’t Dance’ is out now via Universal
