“Big Shaq,” the British rapper character played by comedian Michael Dapaah, scored a huge hit in August with his BBC radio freestyle, “Man’s Not Hot.” It’s a song about how girls tell him to take off his jacket, but he declines, because “man’s not hot.” Although the meaning of the song isn’t exactly deep, Big Shaq explained it this week in a video for lyrics site Genius.
Here’s almost seven minutes of Dapaah doing absolutely nothing to demystify the slang in his song, including “raw sauce” and his infamous attempt at making some gun sounds, “the ting go skraaa.” He definitely talks about the lines, but he doesn’t exactly explain them, per se. He’s just adding to and deepening the Big Shaq character, a naive and fun-loving dude who has an outsized opinion of his own talent and stature.
It’s been fun to see Big Shaq go from a “roadman” caricature in Dapaah’s webseries “Somewhere In London” to a rapper with a legitimate hit single. Shaq (the character) still doesn’t get that he’s a joke, so he’s living it up like he’s some kind of rap god, and every appearance is funnier than the next.
If you hurry, there’s still some time to get on the Big Shaq bandwagon before it jumps the shark.
