Riff Raff is apparently still attempting to do rap things, so to remind us all of his one-time relevance in the sphere of music, Jody Highroller released the music video Tuesday for “Root Beer Float Ghost,” a single off January’s Aquaberry Aquarius.
Within the first 30 seconds of the video, its overtly introspective theme becomes clear. Each shot of the Houston-raised rapper shows him alone in a bathroom either facing a mirror or despondently comforting himself.
Seemingly outdated warp-like transitions direct our attention to Tommy Girl (real name: Tomi Dibiase), who belts a phony hook, one that definitely isn’t made better as the camera repeatedly focuses on her for a few seconds too long.
Still, comfortability (or a lack thereof) defines a video that can’t establish any semblance of it. Before Riff Raff talks up his “Attempt to stay sober with syrup in soda,” he’s spewing something about “Phoenix Suns, Scottsdale / I broke blocks at Harvard, shook dive at Yale.” He somehow keeps a straight face amid spitting something that many might have initially thought was a joke, and it’s all just a bit off.
Riff Raff built a (temporary) legend out of his virality. In past releases his character — which really isn’t a character — played as something of at least amusing entertainment value, resonating with the overly-ironic and overly-branded masses because of it. Here, however, we get three minutes and 41 seconds of confusion that really just falls short of everything, entertaining, somewhat serious or not. In title alone a single named “Root Beer Float Ghost” would’ve seemed to organically lend itself to an interesting novelty of a music video. It didn’t.
