In his first interview since his song ‘Harlem Shake’ went viral, DJ and music producer Baauer opens up about his rise to stardom and the Internet craze he started. Baauer will also be participating in a Reddit AMA at 4 p.m. ET on Monday.
Move over, “Gangnam Style.”
Just days after a cringe-worthy Super Bowl commercial for Wonderful Pistachios sounded the death knell for Psy’s cross-cultural viral smash, a new Internet meme has usurped that once-ubiquitous horse-gallop dance.
It’s called the “Harlem Shake.”
For
the uninitiated, it consists of users uploading videos to YouTube that
last about thirty seconds in length and feature the opening of
electronic music producer Baauer’s song “Harlem Shake.” The videos begin with the song’s sample of a man giving a shrieking siren call of “Con los terroristas!”—Columbian
Spanish for “with the terrorists”—followed by one person, usually in a
ridiculous mask or helmet, dancing to the song alone as the beat builds.
He or she is surrounded by others who are stationary, blissfully
unaware of the dancer. When the directive, Then do the Harlem shake
is uttered about 15 seconds in, the bass drops and the video
metastasizes into pure chaos—the entire coterie engaging in paroxysms of
dance for the next 15 seconds in outrageous outfits, and wielding bizarre props.
The first video
was uploaded to YouTube by amateur comedian Filthy Frank on February 2.
As of February 15, over 40,000 “Harlem Shake” videos have been uploaded
to YouTube, totaling over 175 million views. The cast of the TODAY show, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, this year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, and even a battalion of the Norwegian Army have gotten in on the act.
Baauer’s song “Harlem Shake,” meanwhile, has shot all the way to No. 1 on the iTunes Charts.
Watch the University of Georgia men's swim and dive teams perform an epic rendition of the 'Harlem Shake.'
It’s Friday, February 15, and I am huddled with Baauer in a tiny bathroom inside the green
room of Webster Hall, a 1,500-capacity venue in Manhattan. It’s the
only place where we can find some peace and quiet for his first
interview since the song went viral. The night also marks Baauer’s first
show in his adopted home of New York since the song exploded. It is,
predictably, very sold-out.
“It’s
gotten absolutely insane,” he says. “All I did was make the song so
it’s kind of a weird place for me to be at. I birthed it, it was raised
by others, and now it’s like my weird, fucked up adopted teenage kid
coming back to me.”
Baauer,
23, is a tall, slight fella with a boyish face and big, goofy smile. He
was born Harry Rodrigues in West Philadelphia, but moved around a lot
when he was younger due to his father’s job as “a financial consultant
for international companies.” He lived in Germany from age four to
seven, then London from seven to 13, then to Connecticut from 13-17,
then one more year in London before heading off to college in New York.
“I
got used to not having the same friends all the time and all that shit,
but it got me to appreciate new places, people, and cultures,” he says.
While
his father always played jazz and classic rock—in particular Led
Zeppelin—around the house, Baauer took a shine to hip-hop as a
13-year-old in the suburbs of Connecticut, listening to Dr. Octagon,
Madlib, MF Doom, and others. One evening, he stumbled upon videos of The
DMC World DJ Championships on YouTube, which made him want to become a
DJ.
His first DJ gig was at his local venue in Connecticut: Toquet Hall Teen Center.
“I
was playing some Basement Jaxx, Eric Prydz’s “Call On Me” … I was so
excited for it,” he says with a laugh. “It was basically my friends who
showed up. That was a big, climactic moment for me at the time.”
Baauer
moved to New York in 2007 to study audio technology at City College.
After living in Harlem for two years, both on and off campus, he settled
in Brooklyn in 2009, and currently resides in Bushwick.
“[Brooklyn]
does have an attitude about it,” he says. “There are a lot of artists
and musicians there so the general vibe is very creative, as opposed to
Manhattan which is very business-y and rushed all the time.” He adds, “I
really love New York and identify with it so decided to stay here.”
After
getting involved in “millions of failed projects,” including a
MSTRKRFT-ish duo called SX N DRGS (Sex and Drugs) and the DJ name
Captain Harry, producing dance music, he became more influenced by
hip-hop, particularly trap, which fuses hip-hop with electronic dance music. About a year ago, he changed his name to Baauer.
“It’s
my middle name … I threw another ‘a’ in there to spice it up a little
bit,” he says with a chuckle. “Also, there’s an ice hockey equipment
company called Bauer. And I’m also more than happy to be associated with
Jack Bauer.”
As Baauer, he rededicated himself to his craft.
“This
time last year, I had just started the Baauer project and I told myself
I was going to really commit to this one thing and pursue it full-time.
So I just started practicing all the time making beats. I’d start a
beat and make myself finish it by the end of the day.”
Back on May 22, Baauer released his now-signature track, “Harlem Shake,” on Diplo’s label Mad Decent.
“I
just had the idea of taking a Dutch house squeaky-high synth and
putting it over a hip-hop track,” he says. “And then I tried to just
make it the most stand-out, flashy track that would get anyone’s
attention, so put as many sounds and weird shit in there as I could. The
dude in the beginning I got somewhere off the Internet, I don’t even
know where, and the lion roar just makes no sense.” He laughs. “There’s
the sound of flames in there, too, it’s just really low.”
While the Harlem Shake is
an actual, shoulder-swiveling, Harlem-originated dance that’s been
around since 1981, Baauer says the name for his track is not an homage
to this, or his two-year stint uptown, but merely the track’s sample,
Philadelphia rapper Plastic Little’s “Miller Time.”
“A friend had shown me that track where he says, then do the Harlem shake, and it just got stuck in my head for a while, so I used it,” he says.
About a week-and-a-half ago, Baauer began noticing people posting the 30-second videos to his Facebook page.
“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s funny.’ But it didn’t strike me as the beginning of something,” he says. “There’s an underwater one that I particularly like. I really like any one where they try to do something crazy with it.”
Now
that the song has gone viral, Baauer has seen a definite change in his
live shows. The other night in Chicago, he describes a scene involving
people dressed as Optimus Prime, a ram, and a goat, all going apeshit.
While people always responded positively to “Harlem Shake,” now, he
says, “it’s absolutely insane.”
He even found himself in a Twitter beef with outspoken rapper Azealia Banks.
Banks
released a remix of “Harlem Shake” to SoundCloud, which Baauer’s team
subsequently had removed since she did not have permission to release
it. Banks then accused Baauer of “coccblockin” on Twitter, and then later got more volatile, tweeting to Baauer and co., “you guys are all faggoots.... May you drown in faggotry.”
“I’m
not happy about it,” says Baauer. “She had a version that we were going
to release because I’m a big fan of hers. We knew she likes to beef
with producers. So she laid something on ‘Harlem Shake’ and it was
so/so. Didn’t love it. And that was a little while ago, and since all
this video stuff happened, our plans all changed. Because of that, we
decided to just release the song on it’s own with no vocal version. So
we told her, ‘Please don’t release your version.’ And she said, ‘Well,
I’m going to put it online anyway.’ And we said, ‘Please don’t. We’d
really like it if you didn’t.’ And she did.”
Silly
rap beefs aside, Baauer has big plans for the future. He’s already done
remixes of everyone from No Doubt to Prodigy, and says he’d like to
emulate Diplo, “doing my own thing but also contributing to major pop
acts and giving them my sound.” His first full-length EP will drop
sometime this year on LuckyMe Records and, according to Baauer, will
feature Aluna from AlunaGeorge and Just Blaze. He’s had meetings with
Columbia Records and hints at a potential upcoming collaboration with
rapper A$AP Rocky.
In addition to recording, he’ll also be performing live at a slew of upcoming festivals, including SXSW in Austin, WMC in Miami, and Coachella in Indio, California, as well as a co-headlining tour with rapper Danny Brown in Europe and Australia, followed by a stateside tour with RL Grime over the summer.
In addition to recording, he’ll also be performing live at a slew of upcoming festivals, including SXSW in Austin, WMC in Miami, and Coachella in Indio, California, as well as a co-headlining tour with rapper Danny Brown in Europe and Australia, followed by a stateside tour with RL Grime over the summer.
The “Harlem Shake” videos, meanwhile, have totaled over 175 million YouTube views and counting. And, according to Billboard,
Baauer and the label that put out the track, Mad Decent, stand to make
quite a pretty penny with it since they, through various deals, will
collect revenues for each and every one of these YouTube views.
So as far as the “Harlem Shake” madness is concerned, Baauer couldn’t be happier about it.
“I
think it caught on because it’s a goofy, fun song,” he says. “But at
the base of it, it’s my song and it’s making people want to dance.
That’s the best feeling in the world to me.”
