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Did James Franco Base His "Spring Breakers" Character off of This Guy?

Apparently, James Franco's biggest inspiration for his very Riff Raff-esque character is actually an unknown white dude from Florida named Dangeruss who hates shirts and uses the n-word.

Ever since the Internets got word that Harmony Korine was making a movie called Spring Breakers featuring Selena Gomez, Gucci Mane and an insane-looking James Franco, the rapper/human meme Riff Raff has been taking credit for inspiring the role, even saying that he was offered it first but had to turn it down because he was in Europe.

In an interview with Fuse that hit the web yesterday, Riff said, "Obviously, the style is based on me. Obviously. I don't have to say that. People see the pictures, they think it's me." Last May, Franco denied claims that he was playing the Los Angeles-based rapper, telling GQ that the character was mostly based on, "This local Florida rapper named Dangeruss. He's fairly unknown, but he was down there in the place, living the life, and he became the biggest model for me and he's in the movie."

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I did some research, and it turns out Dangeruss is an unsigned rapper from St. Petersburg, Florida, who, like Franco's character—named Alien in the film—is covered in mismatched tattoos and seems to have an aversion to shirts. Little is known about Dangeruss, but here's what I found out:

—He has 119 followers on Twitter.

—He loves and .

—He looks like a racially ambiguous Gunplay.

—He has a mixtape on DatPiff called Armed and Dangeruss which has been downloaded 99 times. (Go ahead! Be the 100th!)

—He's really excited about Spring Breakers: most of the posts on his are related to the film, as is his "About" information on YouTube.

—He's one of those white rappers who, confoundingly enough, seems to be allowed to say the n-word and not get beaten up.

—His studio looks like DJay's in Hustle & Flow.

—He's kinda scary (I don't have a specific link for this. Just watch every Dangeruss video.)

Complicating the story further is the fact that Riff Raff and Korine recently appeared on the cover of Sneeze together, taking part in a joint interview claiming Franco was playing a character based on a bunch of white rappers from the South and Riff was simply slated to play a member of Franco's posse. Riff Raff has tweeted and instagrammed his disagreement with all of this, but he might just be doing it for the publicity.

Anyways, here's the best Dangeruss song. It's called "My Fork," and it appears to be a thinly-veiled metaphor about cooking crack.

Martin Spasov lives in Brooklyn. Far, far away from Dangeruss. Twat him at @RealMarvon