Single Review: Tipee Tipee Taa Taa

I first saw the video for JCK‘s Tipee Tipee Taa Taa when it was posted on a certain Facebook page for adherents and admirers of a certain subgenre a certain reviewer is part of.

“I’m a rapper inspired by Gothic Imagery. Probably a square peg in a round hole but being a misfit… I feel that’s kinda what Goth is about.”

I’m not classically a musical elitist, but I was initially apprehensive about the crossover between Gothic and Hip-Hop.  Yet, retrospectively, the idea seemed less ridiculous as some of the other posts I’d seen on the page; Fitness Goth fashion, Goth Yoga, and Joth, the paradoxical coupling of Goth and Jock.

Unfortunately, the song was catchy as hell, catchier than JCK’s Straight Jacket and Spirit X. So catchy that I’m no longer allowed to play it in the flat, or even utter the first syllables of the chorus “Tipee Tipee Taa Taa.” And the video had too much female flesh to safely play at work. Thank someone for smartphones, 3g and headphones. 

There are some stand out visuals, not just the women stripping, in this video, like the creepily cut and pasted midget albino vampire clown and the character in the lite blue Gary Oldman Dracula style suit, which has made it impossible to imagine JCK as anyone other than that. The video is really quite well done. Sure, you can tell it’s green screened, but it’s done well, doesn’t try to hide what it is, and what isn’t green screened these days.

“Brought to you by New Zealand on Beer. With no help from New Zealand on Air.”

These words from the closing bars of Tipee Tipee Taa Taa, more than any represent what I’ve come to know about James Castady-Kristament, also known as the J, the C and the K. 

Not because he hasn’t received funding before. He has. This isn’t JCK’s first trip to the rodeo. 

These words represent JCK to me because here is a guy that’s, excuse the masturbatory reference, getting in there and doing it all himself. Film-making, editing, producing, directing and starring, not to mention writing and recording the music.

And taking shit for it.

Man, there are some haters out there. I’m too old and jaded to be inflamed by the pointed name drops, shit talking and lady boobs present in the Tipee Tipee Taa Taa video, which are industry standard for the Hip-Hop genre, or at least last time I paid attention to the genre. What really makes me want to tell people to get over themselves by forcibly inserting themselves in their selves are the comments some of JCK’s other videos are getting.

This from two months ago: “what the actual f–k bro your f–ked in the mind you trippa snippa bro you need a bullet in the brain not a straight jacket your f–ked c–t.”

Another: “Absolute shit song, absolute shit video.”

If these comments prove anything it’s that Eleanor Catton was right; tall poppy syndrome is alive and well in New Zealand. And on a separate point Hekia Parata, Minister of Education, needs to urgently reappraise the English curriculum.

With all this back story, the pointed name drops, shit-talking and playfully acerbic tone of this song suddenly make sense.

This song is a two handed “screw you, guys” to the haters, in the only language the haters understand. Hate. 

And the video, which is even more quirky and uniquely the JCK of recent years, to the point of purposefully over the top, with the JumpyGeuse and the rapping gorilla, is an affirming “I’ll do what I want.”

Tipee Tipee Taa Taa is from the upcoming album Land of the Wrong White Cloud, which you can preorder here and the video (NSFW) is on the JCK Youtube. It’s not very gothic, but it’s damn catchy, and it’s better than self-congratulatory slap-assing like an internet troll.

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