Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell

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"Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" is a 2008 song by American hip hop group Das Racist. It was first released free on their MySpace page. [1]

Contents

The song is about two people (Das Racist members Himanshu "Heems" Suri and Victor "Kool A.D." Vazquez) on their cellphones, trying to find each other in "the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell on Jamaica Avenue,"; its lyrics consist primarily of the phrase "I'm at the Pizza Hut / I'm at the Taco Bell / I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell".

History

The song is based on a phrase that Vazquez had included in the stream-of-consciousness song "I Zimbra", from his 2006 self-produced album The Electric Kool A.D. Acid Test. During an early Das Racist show at Wesleyan University, he used the phrase while freestyling, and received a strongly positive reaction from the audience, "so I just kept repeating that line, and Hima[nshu] caught on immediately and did the same, and soon everybody was singing along;" at this point, the performers decided that their newly-created song was worth recording. [2]

To accompany the lyrics, Suri chose a beat by Khalid "Le1f" Diouf, who he and Vazquez had met when all three were attending Wesleyan, [2] and who at the time was only 17. [3] Diouf had derived the beat from the 1991 Masters at Work single "The Ha Dance (Pumpin' Dubb)". [2]

They recorded the song in Patrick Wimberly's basement, in a single take, [4] [2] "mov[ing] back and forth on one mic[rophone]", [5] as part of a session with four other songs. [6] Wimberly, who had introduced himself to Das Racist after watching them perform the song at the Galapagos Art Space, has since credited the song with having convinced him that he wanted to be a producer. He asked them to not make the song publicly available until he had had the chance to implement audio post production; instead, they posted it online immediately. [2]

The song has a tempo of 130 bpm. [7]

Reception

Pitchfork lauded it as "just a funny, stupid, silly, brainy, knowing song all at once" that "retains its inner Cheech and Chong and still seems leagues smarter for it", and noted that although it is "a one-idea track (...) that idea somehow becomes more endearing as it rolls on". [8] The Tribune Business News likewise invoked Cheech and Chong, but suggested that the song may lead listeners to wonder if Das Racist may instead be "a couple of avant-garde dadaists taking on corporate America" [9] despite "seem(ing) like one of Andy Samberg's gag groups". [10]

Rolling Stone found it to be "one joke repeated ad nauseam", but also "(h)ilarious, impossibly catchy and a statement about late-capitalist nausea" [11] and "weirdly mesmerizing," [12] referring to it variously as a "stoned spoof" [13] and "retarded genius". [14]

The Village Voice said it "deftly locates the fine line between stupid and clever, and snorts it", and notes that its repetition of the line 'I'm at the Pizza Hut / I'm at the Taco Bell / I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell' "passes from grating to absurd to hilarious to poignant to transcendent" and is "either very, very meaningful or completely meaningless." [4]

Death and Taxes compared it to "a three-minute koan" and "The Streets before Mike Skinner got all serious and bummed everyone out", calling it "both feverishly juvenile and somehow profound" and "an existential meditation on consumer identity in corporate America", and noting that "(t)he only lyrical deviations from the core phrase" – e.g., "I got that taco smell / I got that pizza butt / I'm at the combination Taco Bell and Pizza Hut" – are "beautifully executed". [15]

Robert Christgau noted its "skinny laptop beat", and felt that its themes include "the ubiquity of corporate culture, the limits of cellphone communication, how funny life gets on weed, (and) how screwed up life gets on weed", proposing that the song's success is the result of its "timing – in how intimately the two rappers interact and how inefficiently they connect". [16]

Vice emphasized that "(d)epending on whom you asked, (the song) was either a commentary on the pointlessness of big box consumer culture, or (…) just pointless"; [17] similarly, The Toronto Star opined that whether the song is "(d)epending on the analyst (…) [the song] is either a treatise on corporatism or repetitive nonsense about pals botching a meeting place." [18]

The Hartford Courant identified it as "a sort of slacker mantra for whatever social commentary you care to project over it", but also conceded that "maybe it's just a goof". [19]

The Wall Street Journal dismissed it as "a lovably dumb slice of pop-rap" which "earned (Das Racist) a reputation as a novelty act," [20] , while The Capital Times described it as "a disposable novelty" [21] that is "either (a) a razor-smart commentary on America's culture of consumption, (b) a brainless, repetitive throwaway or (c) some combination of the two". [22]

The journal New Literary History called it "purposefully inane", but noted that its "nonsensical lyrics are subject to strict structural constraints". [23] A rhetorical analysis in The Tartan claimed that the song's popularity derives not only from the song's use of a "socioeconomically loaded location" which enables "audiences to identify with the common man", and the presence of repetition (citing ancient Roman orator Quintillian), but also from the "semantic confusion": not only does the pronoun "I" in the phrase "I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" mean different things depending on whether Suri or Vazquez is the one saying it, so too does "the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell", as evidenced by the fact that the two men are unable to locate each other [24] even though they are both in "the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell on Jamaica Avenue". [25] Slate has proposed that the popularity also depends on the fact that the names of the two restaurant chains have the same number of syllables: "If the song took place at a combination Taco Bell and Long John Silver's, it would never work." [2]

In The New Yorker , Sasha Frere-Jones assessed the more intellectual and political lyrics of Das Racist’' later mixtapes, and declared that "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" is "the kind of thing Das Racist might make fun of", [26] while Andrew Marantz posited that it is "in part, a parody of the hip-hop tradition of alluding to specific locations." [25] In New York , Lizzy Goodman declared it to be "(g)leefully stupid" but "also a subversive commentary on mind-numbing mall culture"; [27] similarly, in The Indian Express , Nandini Nair stated that it "might sound like catchy twaddle" but is also "a commentary on the prevalence of commercialisation and the illusion of choice." [28]

Comedian Hari Kondabolu – brother of Das Racist hype man Ashok Kondabolu – has asked "[Is] it simply a funny song about two friends going to the wrong fast-food restaurant, or [does] it say more about the state of American culture? Does the repetition in the song symbolize the Mobius-strip repetition of chains that appear throughout the country? Or something more?" [29]

A 2009 remix of the song by Wallpaper. similarly received widespread praise. [7] [8]

In 2010, Heems attributed much of the song's success to the "millions or billions of dollars [that] have been spent to make 'Pizza Hut' and 'Taco Bell' the recognizable names they are today”, saying that the song "is an infectious meme largely because it references a meme already proven to be infectious." As well, he described how Das Racist's manager was approached by "someone from Yum! Brands who supposedly loved the song but felt the name of our band would be a 'problem' for marketing"; he emphasized that "(t)his is fortunate because my financial situation would not have afforded me the moral fortitude I would've needed to say no to money from Yum! Brands." [30]

The song saw a resurgence in popularity in 2020, on TikTok, where it accompanied "more than 400,000 videos" [31] about experiencing combinations of various things, such as ADHD and depression. [2]

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References

  1. ↑ Still Rapping, No Longer Racist, by Laura Nahmias; in The Wall Street Journal ; published December 25, 2012; "Suri and Vasquez had released a song through their Myspace page called 'Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell'"
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The Oral History of Das Racist’s “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell”, by Nitish Pahwa, at Slate ; published September 8, 2023
  3. ↑ Too Gay for Hip-Hop? Le1f Takes On Traditionally Homophobic Genre: His single 'Wut' is the buzziest rap song of the summer. But is the music world really changing enough to bring mainstream success to this aggressively out New York artist?; by Melissa Leon; in The Daily Beast ; published August 10, 2012
  4. 1 2 A Chat with Das Racist, the Geniuses Behind "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell", by Rob Harvilla, in The Village Voice ; published June 17, 2009
  5. ↑ 'We Knew Things Were Different For Us': Heems On Rap, Race And Identity on Morning Edition (National Public Radio); published March 13, 2015
  6. ↑ Das Racist aims for sincere, surreal; by Greg Kot; at the Chicago Tribune ; published October 14, 2011; p. 10
  7. 1 2 Wallpaper. and Das Racist get the dancefloor munchies, at the SF Weekly ; published June 24, 2009
  8. 1 2 "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix)", reviewed by Scott Plagenhoef, at Pitchfork ; published June 7, 2009; retrieved October 26, 2024
  9. ↑ Sophomoric Yet Significant, by Shea Connor; in the McClatchy-Tribune Business News; published October 21, 2011
  10. ↑ Music roundup: Das Racist not a typical rap group, by Mike Osegueda; in the McClatchy-Tribune Business News; published March 24, 2011
  11. ↑ "Essential Das Racist", in Rolling Stone ; issue 1139; published September 15, 2011; p. 38
  12. ↑ HOT LIST, in Rolling Stone ; issue 1082/1083, (Jul 9-Jul 23, 2009); p. 20
  13. ↑ Sit Down, Man, by Jon Dolan; in Rolling Stone , issue 1115, (Oct 14, 2010): p. 100
  14. ↑ HOT LIST, in Rolling Stone , issue 1115 (Oct 14, 2010): p. 26
  15. ↑ Song of the Day: Das Racist, by Alex Moore, at Death and Taxes ; published April 6, 2009; via archive.org
  16. ↑ Who's That? Brooown!, by Robert Christgau; originally published at Barnes and Noble, December 26, 2012; archived at RobertChristgau.com
  17. ↑ Eat Pray Shrug: Heems Is Getting His Shit Back Together, But Doesn’t Care If You Care, by Drew Hillard; at Vice ; published March 13, 2015
  18. ↑ Das Racist: Are we missing something? Group has critics, but not fans, scratching their collective heads, by Ashante Infantry, in The Toronto Star ; published January 27, 2011
  19. ↑ DAS RACIST GETS SERIOUS: WITH 'RELAX,' RAP GROUP THAT GREW OUT OF WESLEYAN BIDS TO SHATTER OLD STEREOTYPES, by Eric R. Danton; in the Hartford Courant ; published September 11, 2011
  20. ↑ A Rap Crew Defies Its Name, by Nick Neyland; in The Wall Street Journal ; published September 12, 2011
  21. ↑ REALLY, DAS RACIST HAS SERIOUS SIDE by Andy Downing; in The Capital Times ; published October 13, 2011
  22. ↑ DAS RACIST SHOW FALLS SHORT by Andy Downing; in The Capital Times ; published October 20, 2011
  23. ↑ Singing Nonsense, by Rossen Ventzislavov; in New Literary History ; Vol. 45, Iss. 3, (Summer 2014)
  24. ↑ A rhetorical analysis of Das Racist , by Will Penman, in The Tartan ; published September 9, 2012
  25. 1 2 ORIGIN STORIES: Signage Dept., by Andrew Marantz, in The New Yorker; Vol. 89, Iss. 24, (Aug 12-Aug 19, 2013)
  26. ↑ BLACKLISTED: Pop Music, by Sasha Frere-Jones; in The New Yorker ; Vol. 86, Iss. 37, (Nov 22, 2010):
  27. ↑ Brooklyn Top 40: A highly subjective ranking of the songs that define the sound of right now., by Lizzy Goodman; in New York ; published November 16, 2009
  28. ↑ That’s Racy, by Nandini Nair, in The Indian Express ; published January 7, 2012
  29. ↑ Das Racist Cover Story: These Colors Don't Run, by Hari Kondabolu; in Spin ; published October 17, 2011
  30. ↑ Das Racist: Thanks, Internet! - Brooklyn's finest have a few thoughts on their online celebrity, by Himanshu Suri, Victor Vazquez, and Ashok Kondabolu; in The Village Voice ; published January 19, 2010
  31. ↑ 50 of the biggest TikTok songs and sounds of 2020 and where they came from, by Connor Perrett and Palmer Haasch; at Business Insider ; published December 29, 2020
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