Audio By Carbonatix
What’s in a name?
Well, maybe a lot, but surely not everything.
Take the rapping white kid from San Francisco who goes by the name Watsky. A handle like that certainly doesn’t evoke images of a slick, fast-talking rapper who also has a penchant for spoken word poetry; but that’s what George Watsky is.
Now living in Los Angeles, the 25-year-old artist, who first made a name for himself in 2007 on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry is bringing his acrobatic rhymes to town on July 1, at Red Owl in Tempe. Sunday’s show marks the first stop of a 22-city U.S. tour.
The dude’s been an Internet hit, going viral with the YouTube video Pale Kid Raps Fast, where, in just under a minute, he rattles off 329 words while Busta Rhymes’ “Break Ya Neck” plays in the background. Ellen DeGeneres, Carson Daly, and the NAACP have seen fit to feature the innocuous-looking Watsky, who has said he is not interested in being a gimmick.
While Watsky sure spits fast, he doesn’t ramble to confuse.
“For me it’s interesting because, I really want people to understand what I’m saying,” he says in an interview last year. “So there’s a push and a pull between wanting to show people what you can do,and showcase your talent, but also not wanting to be known as a gimmick.”
Check out the skills for yourselves in this clip. Does Phoenix have someone who can flow as fast as this guy? Let us know in the comment section.
