Black America strikes back at culture vultures with #trapcovers

By DeWayne Rogers
Feb 28, 2016
6:08 pm

A culture war has been brewing for quite some time now between black and white America. The latest battle in this never-ending saga began on February 18, with the simple upload of a video to YouTube and Facebook. The post was made by Samantha Harvey, who at the time decided that her time was best spent creating a cover of Rihanna’s hit single “Work.”

Now this act alone shouldn’t be considered an act of cultural treason. But Harvey decided to take things a step further when in a now deleted comment, she asserted that she was forced to translate the words–for a song mostly sung in Caribbean patois–before she could effectively sing it (since, you know, Rihanna didn’t have the decency to sing it using the King’s English.)

To make matters worse, commenters begin to chime in that they preferred the Anglicized version, since they could now understand the words.

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That was strike one.

But even more egregious offenses were to come as a flood of covers for Beyonce’s “Formation” began to make their rounds on the Internet, also reworking the sound to fit more into Donald’s Trump’s lily white vision of America. That was strike two. Upon further listening though, the white singers seemingly had no problem loosely throwing around the word “negro” in their versions.

Dammit, that’s strike three!

Here’s an example of the terrible Beyonce reworks.

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…and another

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Well it wasn’t going to take long before Black Twitter sprang into action to lay the smack down on these awkward, acoustic covers by flipping the script with an ingenious movement appropriately titled #trapcovers. Here’s the most succinct definition of the movement:

In essence, black people decided to flip the script and show white people how it feels to have a classic song changed. The results so far have been hilariously satisfying. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Frozen’s “Let it Go”

My #TrapCover of Let It Go & Do You Want To Build A Snowman From Frozen pic.twitter.com/XeIpCPuY3v

— Demetrius Harmon (@meechonmars) February 26, 2016

2. Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe”

"I Got You Babe" x Sonny & Cher #trapcover #blacklove #BlackHistoryMonth pic.twitter.com/K07PvfhqoO

— DJ KHALEESI (@_ravey_) February 26, 2016

3. Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

hope you guys like my #trapcover of "we will rock you" by queen :))))) pic.twitter.com/Cx6ud3ONv2

— isaiah (@IsaiahSmith311) February 26, 2016

4. Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”

Here's my #TrapCover of Bohemian Rapsody by Queen. Like and subscribe fore more covers (IB: @ILLCapitano94) pic.twitter.com/PJwGYlTPEr

— 2006 Rex (@RexTestarossa) February 26, 2016

5. Spice Girls’ “Spice Up Your Life”