TikTok Turned Lil Yachty’s ‘Poland’ Right into a Nationwide Anthem

Lil Yachty’s “Poland” is 83 seconds lengthy, jarringly repetitive, and purposefully obtuse. And but, within the palms of TikTok, it’s grow to be a smash, cracking the highest half of the Billboard Sizzling 100 and changing into the satisfaction of its namesake nation.

Not that Yachty supposed any of this. “The music was a joke,” he mentioned in a response video with YouTuber ZIAS! “Like, I used to be simply trolling.” The hook—“I took the Woooooock to Polaaaaand”—is one thing he improv’d one evening after seeing somebody sipping a Poland Spring bottle within the studio. So the Poland he’s singing about may technically be Poland, Maine. (“Wock,” if you happen to’re questioning, is a nod to Wockhardt cough syrup.) Because the music went viral, web sleuths tried to search out out when Yachty would possibly’ve gone to the Central European nation and principally got here up empty-handed. The 25-year-old Atlanta rapper didn’t even plan to launch the monitor, however he ended up placing it on SoundCloud after it discovered its method on-line.

The leak proved fortuitous. After “Poland” hit SoundCloud, TikTokkers remodeled the music’s malleable refrain into gags about taking motion stars abroad (“I took the Rock to Poland”) and staple gadgets again to burrito chains (“I took the guac to Chipotle”). Somebody even made a loaf of bread emblazoned with the lyrics. It impressed greater than 20,000 creations in every week.

No small variety of these got here from Poland itself. One video known as Yachty’s name-drop a “prime 10 second in Polish historical past.” Rapper Pat wrote, “That is the proudest I’ve been as a Polish individual since [soccer player Robert] Lewandowski scored 5 targets in 9 minutes.” One other consumer referred to it as Poland’s new nationwide anthem.

Nikodem Rachoń, a spokesperson for the Polish embassy in Washington, DC, says that he hopes the rapper will in the future go to the nation, and that the embassy could be glad to facilitate the journey. He even added a little bit of music criticism: “I am fairly positive that on such an event, he would have plenty of alternatives to search out some new inspiration for the subsequent verses the music nonetheless apparently wants.”

Rapper Kinny Zimmer says that as quickly as he heard the monitor, he was “positive it might grow to be viral.” As somebody who loves fashionable Polish tradition, he hopes that Yachty’s music will root his residence nation within the minds of Individuals and train his countrymates “how stunning our Polish aesthetics are.” Rapper Pezet confessed to preferring a “extra old-school sound” than that on “Poland” however appreciated its “cool new vibe” and hoped it may encourage collaborations between Polish and US hip-hop artists. 

Others are embracing the music much more absolutely. Bedoes has dropped a “Poland” remix; within the video, he’s shirtless on a ship with an ax and a glow-in-the-dark protect. “Lil Yachty mentioning my nation was a meme to me,” he says, “however it was additionally form of surrealistic, as a result of him being a prime artist, identified worldwide, rapping about my nation was actually particular. I knew all of the ways in which it in all probability was a coincidence that he talked about Poland, however nonetheless, that was actually particular.” He, too, hopes the unusual hit results in an elevated appreciation of Polish tradition. “Possibly pierogis with Wock?” he jokes. 

Unexpectedly for such a enjoyable lark, there’s a thornier geopolitical angle concerned with “Poland.” As Lil Yachty’s music unfold, messages started circulating on Twitter that Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki had invited the rapper to go to his nation. Native media quickly debunked the rumor. Anybody fearing elevated authoritarianism in Europe is likely to be happy to know that Yachty isn’t really liaising with Morawiecki, who represents the ruling Legislation and Justice Get together, which has been criticized for a crackdown on judicial independence and a common slide away from democratic rules. 

As of this writing, TikTok movies tagged #lilyachtypoland are hovering shut to six million views, search outcomes for the music prime 1 billion. Yachty’s personal “Poland” video has been seen greater than 14 million instances. Finally, it is unclear if his music could have a long-lasting influence on appreciation for Polish tradition worldwide, however in a message from the artist on that video’s YouTube web page, the rapper makes clear it is a music for normal people: “You are welcome Polish individuals, you now have Wock.”