It's the quarantine pick-me-up you didn't know you needed.
When the pandemic put his other projects on hold, Milwaukee rapper and filmmaker Wes Tank decided to film himself something he’d been doing live for years: rapping the words to Dr. Seuss books over Dr. Dre beats.
It’s a clever mash-up of two of history’s most talented self-proclaimed doctors, and it’s one that’s going viral. Tank’s most popular upload, a reading of Fox in Socks over “What’s the Difference” and “Let Me Ride,” has accumulated over 1.1 million views.
Tank says the moment he spontaneously rapped One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish in 2015 made him feel as though he’d “unlocked an achievement in the video game of life,” and he’s been doing it ever since.
The novelty of the project, which rests on a familiarity with the oeuvres of two of the best in their respective fields, is what gets people in the proverbial door, but Seuss’s wordplay is famously intricate, which makes it difficult to rap, which makes Tank’s project all the more impressive.
Tank did not anticipate this series becoming this popular, and he’s heartened by the kids he’s been able to entertain during a difficult time.
“I think this is helping families a little bit to cope and to have something positive that is going to make you laugh, and is not cynical, and it’s not the news,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “There are so many kids out there who have no clue about what is going on in the world and that naivete is sort of fragile, and everybody’s parents are a little tense. So when people send videos of their kids glued to the screen watching this, that just warms my heart.”
You can watch all of Tank’s Dr. Seuss Raps over Dr. Dre Beats videos on his YouTube channel.
