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Music

Lil Dicky and Chris Brown Trade Lives in "Freaky Friday" and It's Strange As Hell

In their new video "Freaky Friday," Lil Dicky wakes up as Chris Brown and what he decides to do for the day might surprise you.
KC
Queens, US
Screenshot from "Freaky Friday" video

Freaky Friday is so much of a coming of age cult classic that it's been remade twice since it's original 1976 release. Somehow it's 2018 and we still haven't grasped the concept of how to effectively switch bodies like the movie, but Lil Dicky and Chris Brown try their hands at what that would look like for the modern day man. It’s every bit as terrible as it sounds. Borrowing from Freaky Friday's plot, Dicky is dining on Asian cuisine, when after being owned by a "fan" he wishes he could be someone else. Chris Brown, as seen on a news broadcast, is wishing the same thing when the waiter hands Dicky a magical fortune cookie. The two wake up the next morning trapped in the other's body is when the real madness ensues.

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Already, Dicky and Brown's switcheroo is vastly different from the film. Instead of the mother-daughter duo, the men are trying to transcend race and levels of celebrity, but the video is a tone-deaf version of what it would mean for them to walk in each other's shoes. Before the switch, Dicky's main gripe was that everyone in hip-hop was cooler than him, mainly in part because of "they're so good at dancing and have the sickest tattoos."

When the spirit of Dicky awakens in Chris Brown, he does a few things anyone would do when trapped in the body of a megastar. He FaceTimes Kanye West and cuddles with women in his bed, but of all things he wonders whether or not he's able to say the n-word, "Wonder if I can say the n-word?" followed by using it to refer to anyone he comes into contact with. That on its own is silly enough until Brown's verse as Dicky ends in "I drive his Ferarri and I'm light-skinned black."

In an Instagram post, Dicky says this is his first song in three years and call out culture is more rampant than it's ever been. Yesterday, he professed this was the "best work of his life" and that it may reach a billion views in a day. It's nowhere near that target, and although comedy and punchlines are needed in rap bars, this was done in poor taste.

Kristin Corry is a staff writer for Noisey. Follow her on Twitter.