Music / Watsky

"I'm the best rapper alive that gets mistaken for Michael Cera everywhere he drives."

"You might think that you're ruined
You might think you're defeated
If you love what you're doing,
you've already succeeded"

— "Never Let It Die"

George Watsky (born September 15, 1986), better known as just Watsky, is a rapper, musician, poet and writer from San Francisco, California. He is best known for his fast and technical rapping style, and is also noted for his steadfast independent mentality, turning down several opportunities to sign for labels in favour of producing and releasing his music on his own.

Watsky first rose to prominence as a poet in 2006 when he was named the Youth Speaks Grand Slam Poetry Champion and the Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam Champion. In 2007, he was featured on the HBO show Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry and made his first foray into hip-hop as part of the group Invisible Inc., comprised of him alongside producers Daniel Riera and Max Miller-Loran. The group released an album of the same name that year.

Watsky went on to release his debut solo album in 2009, but would not break out as a rapper until 2011, when he released a video called "Pale Kid Raps Fast". The video, in which he performs a humorous and high-speed original rap verse over the instrumental of Busta Rhymes' "Break Ya Neck", went viral, and was seen by many YouTube rappers as a challenge, with many attempting to copy or outdo the original video (which Watsky even mocked in a follow-up called "G.O.A.T Fast Rapper").

The popularity of these videos led to him being a guest on Ellen and Epic Rap Battles of History; on the latter show, he has played William Shakespeare, the Fourth Doctor and Edgar Allan Poe, with all three appearances containing what many have declared to be the all-time fastest verses in ERB history.

The videos Watsky made showcasing music from his mixtapes A New Kind of Sexy and Nothing Like the First Time quickly amassed him a large YouTube following. In 2013, he released a second album, Cardboard Castles, and embarked on a tour of the same name. Later that year, he was a guest on the Warped Tour, and got the tour briefly shut down after he made a 35-foot stage jump from a rig during his performance, injuring two audience members.

Watsky's third album, 2014's All You Can Do, had a slightly more serious sound than his previous work, featured a diverse range of features, and was almost entirely produced by Anderson .Paak. A track from the album, "Ink Don't Bleed", was also partially dedicated to him addressing the fallout of the stage dive. His fourth album, 2016's x Infinity (pronounced "times infinity"), was far more sonically and lyrically adventurous than his previous work, and was supported by him creating a music video for every track on the album^note even for "Exquisite Corpse", the 10-minute-long bonus track that had 9 features on it, crowdfunding several of them. Each of the music videos were created to be stitched together, and a 75-minute-long "video album" of x Infinity was premiered live in concert in late 2017 before being released on YouTube in 2018.

In 2018, Watsky also reunited with Invisible Inc. for their 10-year anniversary, putting out another album titled Fine Print and going on tour. The same year, he announced his fifth album, Complaint, which was released in 2019. He then released his sixth album, Placement, in 2020. His seventh album, Intention, was released in 2023 in two parts (Part 1 in February, Part 2 in April). After the album's release, he announced on his Twitter that it may be his final album and could mark the end of his "Watsky" persona, but he planned to continue making art.

Watsky has also done a bit of acting work, appearing in Arrested Development and Blindspotting. He further contributed a song to The Hamilton Mixtape, released a book of compiled essays titled How to Ruin Everything in 2016, and set the Guinness World Record for longest rapping marathon (33 hours, 33 minutes, 19 seconds) on May 7, 2020.

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Discography:

• Invisible Inc. (as part of Invisible Inc.) (2007)
• Watsky (2009)
• A New Kind Of Sexy (mixtape) (2011)
• Watsky & Mody (with Mody) (EP) (2012)
• Nothing Like The First Time (mixtape) (2012)
• Cardboard Castles (2013)
• All You Can Do (2014)
• x Infinity (2016)
• Fine Print (as part of Invisible Inc.) (2018)
• Complaint (2019)
• Placement (2020)
• Intention (2023)

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Tropes:

• Album Title Drop: This trope includes the following:
  • A New Kind of Sexy, Nothing Like The First Time, Cardboard Castles and All You Can Do have their title tracks.
  • At the end of Tiny Glowing Screens Pt. 3 on x Infinity, he shouts "Times Infinity"
  • In Mean-Ass Drunk on Complaint, Watsky says "It's just one small complaint".
  • In Advanced Placement on Placement, the hook ends "Your ass is now in advanced placement".
• Alternative Hip Hop
• Boastful Rap: Parodied in G.O.A.T (W.G.M.F.M.C.) which features the most outlandish and offensive boasts possible.
  "The ten best rappers is a list of me
  I exist to be, the greatest rapper in history
  Built a time machine from Flava's clock and a saddle
  Taught Plato to rap, then kicked his ass in a battle
  I'm the best rapper alive
  That gets mistaken for Michael Cera everywhere he drives"
  • He gets better at it, over the years with Whoa Whoa Whoa:
  I'm a phenomenon. And I gotta bring pain in the Octagon
  When I wanna spit game at a soccer mom I get it quicker than the left lane on the Autobahn
  Fast; like Ramadan - and I battle young Padawans all the damn day
  I'm getting naked and I'm hopping on a wrecking ball so hot I got that motherfucker a la flambé
  I go to Miley's house, I see that Miley's home
  I play Miley's ribcage with my dick like it's a Xylie-phone
  Yes, that was highly fucked up but my skills are highly honed
  And if I was highly hyphy I might be more widely known
  C'est la vie, better pay my fee
  They kick it in Seattle in a Patagonia jacket, they get it in the Bay in a plain white tee
  Hey mami, you a PYT!
  Wanna see me speak? Then I go (go) go (go) go (go)
  Every time I get a beat I know I gotta beat it up, I bend it then I break it then I chop it and I eat it up
  And PETA would never approve of the way I've been treating the music, I bleed it
  I bruise it, I kick it to the curb and then I'm sipping on my bourbon I be freaking it doing it, keeping it moving
  I'm picking apart the muscle when I'm thinking about the hustle but I'm nice. Nice!
• Blasphemous Boast: From Whoa Whoa Whoa: "I used to think I was an atheist until I realized I'm a GOD"
• Early-Installment Weirdness: He isn't quite as skilled a rapper in Invisible Inc. and that album and Watsky have very different sounds to the rest of his work and are in general a lot more lo-fi
• "I Am" Song: Who's Been Lovin' You and Difference is The Differences
• Motor Mouth: What he's most known for. He even put a concentrated effort into avoiding the image that he'd garnered due to this at one point, unlisting his original 'Pale Kid Raps Fast' video. He still uses a very fast flow very regularly in his music however, most prominently in Ugly Faces, Whoa Whoa Whoa and Don't Be Nice
• Nice Guy: The invisible Inc. song Mr. Nice Guy is an inversion, being about the typical internet definition. Watsky himself is seemingly an example however.
• Our Zombies Are Different: In the video for Kill a Hipster, Hipsters taking over a neighborhood is treated like a Zombie Apocalypse, complete with Zombies in ridiculous hipster fashions and non-hipsters getting infected and becoming hipsters.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Discussed and joked about a lot.
  "You wanna hear a laugher?
  A white rapper walks into sixteen bars"
• Self-Empowerment Anthem: A common theme to his music is overcoming adversity to achieve your dreams. Particularly depression, which he has written songs about his trials over.
• Shout-Out: Constantly to Will Ferrell movies such as Step Brothers and Anchorman.
• Signature Song: Sloppy Seconds from Cardboard Castles is by far his most popular track and Pale Kid Raps Fast.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The video for Whoa Whoa Whoa begins with Jim Belushi driving a lime-green Lamborgini and listening to the song Sloppy Seconds, and inspecting the car for dirt after he parks. The song he's listening to (Sloppy Seconds) begins with the line "Fuck you if you love a car for the paint job".
• Stealth Pun: All over the place.
  • From his verse of Bliss 'n' Eso's Tear The Roof Off
  "My thoughts tend towards hand grenade harm
  I think, therefore I amputate arms"