“Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada. Basic bitches wear that shit, so I don’t even bother.” Sound familliar? If you’re a millennial who was on MySpace in the early 2010s, it probably rings a bell. But if you happen to be one of the teens of the Tik Tok generation, the iconic lyrics have more than likely eluded you.
Kreayshawn is an American rapper from Oakland, California, and she was primarily active in the early 2010s in the rap group she started with her friends. Associated heavily with Lil Debbie and V-Nasty, the crew took a largely DIY approach to producing rap music, and the cleaver, feminine, and sassy lyrics that appear in their most popular music were all hallmarks of their style.
Although there were a few other songs from Kreayshawn that floated around over the course of her popularity, her primary hit was also her very first song, ‘Gucci Gucci’. Like many of her other songs to follow, the lyrics are smart and snappy, and they have a sense of fun and memorability to them. The sound and the lyrics combine to make a homegrown, youthful, pop-leaning rap song with a chorus that’s made to get stuck in your head.
When you see the video, the era is immediately obvious. Fake hipster glasses, winged eyeliner and piercing colour saturation make it clear that the 2010s were just kicking off, and Kreayshawn was already ahead of the curve. The music video was pretty much entirely homemade, finding random participants to jump in and shooting in public.
If there’s one thing people who remember can agree on, it’s that the song is a total banger. However, more often than not, people often find themselves in the comments of her videos or even on social media asking, “Where is she now?” or “What ever happened to her? Why didn’t ‘Gucci Gucci’ kick off the kind of career that shot so many viral internet stars into the mainstream?” To put it simply, she was too far ahead of her time.
You may be thinking at this point, “How can a kitschy rap song that’s so 2010s be too far ahead of its time?” And the answer is, well, Tik Tok. Turn to the comments on the video, social media, or anywhere else that whispers of Kreayshawn linger, and you’ll find people in agreement that if ‘Gucci Gucci’ were released today, it would likely go viral on Tik Tok. Think about it—it’s an app for clips of songs to enhance user-made videos. Not only is it entirely aligned with the spirit of her creative roots, but ‘Gucci Gucci’ itself feels like a song that would have ample opportunity to make waves.
It has that same snappiness and creativity of so much of the music that Tik Tok uplifts right now, whereas she was one of the only people doing what she was doing when she first came onto the scene.
Additionally, it’s likely pure coincidence that so many of the lyrics aged eerily well. She makes so many references and makes so many quips that are perhaps even more relevant now than when the song first dropped. Her line, “I’m lookin’ like Madonna but I’m flossing like Ivana Trump,” takes on a whole different meaning, and the lines, “The type of bitch that make you wish that you ain’t never met her/ The editor, director plus I’m my own boss,” almost appears to poke fun at the “girlboss” mentality that permeated the late 2010s. Simply put, it’s probably true that if this exact track were released today, it’d likely make the rounds on Tik Tok somehow.
That’s the thing, though. Most of the younger crowd on Tik Tok have literally never heard the song before—so much so that it would be feasible enough to pass it off as a new song in itself. I won’t lie—I’ve fantasised about ‘Gucci Gucci’ blowing up present-day only for people to discover that it’s actually over a decade old. Talk about a timeless masterpiece.
