Your Grandma Might Be a Famous Rapper! [Funk Radio E99]

Today we quickly reveal a recent Facebook trend – grandmothers are mistakenly tagging themselves as rap pioneer Grandmaster Flash.

---

  

---

Oh, Grandma. It’s so cute when you try to use our newfangled interwebs. But maybe you should stick to baking cookies. As we discovered in this Gizmodo article late last week, several peoples’ grandmothers are reportedly tagging themselves as Grandmaster Flash. Maybe there were a few stories you forgot to tell us, Grammy.

For those unaware, Grandmaster Flash (often accompanied by the Furious Five) is a Rock-and-Roll-Hall-of-Faming pioneer of rap and DJ music as we know it today. His music was particularly crucial to the development of hip hop in the late 70s and early 80s, when the genre was in its infancy. Two of his songs that immediately come to mind for us (and that we’ve even discussed in prior episodes) are The Message in 1982 and White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It) in 1983. But don’t take our word for it – give them a listen in the Spotify playlist to your right. (As a bonus treat, also enjoy 99 Luftballoons by Nena. Trust us, it’s relevant.)

As for this Facebook phenomenon, we found it pretty hilarious. As Peter points out, it’s surprising to see that the elderly are embracing the concept of social media and even tagging, but don’t bother to do a sanity check on Facebook’s auto-complete feature. Kyle also reminds us that Facebook doesn’t automatically recognize you as “Grandma,” so tagging yourself as such (as opposed to your actual name) misses the point completely. But we’re not judging you, Gam Gam. We appreciate the laughs.

Then again, this is assuming that she is making a mistake. Maybe your grandma IS Grandmaster Flash, she’s just really huble about her past and has settled down to a quiet life, tagging herself accurately and causing amusement to her unaware family at the same time. Now that we’ve planted the seed of doubt, you will never look at Gammy the same way again.