TikTok rap captures the UK's entire mood right now
We're all feeling pretty confused right now.
As restrictions begin to lift around the world, our prime ministers and presidents have left us all with more questions than answers about what's going on.
In England, the government has started to adjust these restrictions, with restaurants and bars opening, and travel allowed to certain countries. But since the beginning of lockdown, government guidance on what people are allowed to do has been vague and difficult to interpret — from its bizarre "stay alert" slogan to its three-month-overdue mask-wearing policy.
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21-year-old graduate and musician Victor Oluwatowoju — aka V.I.C. — has pretty much summed up every single question we could possibly have right now in a TikTok freestyle addressed to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Oh, and did I mention it's catchy as hell? The video has struck a chord on TikTok, where it's gained 444.4K views and 87.8K likes.
"Hey Boris, what's going on? Are we still home? Or is lockdown done?" V.I.C. begins.
Soon, the questions move onto graduate employment and the lack of prospects for the Class of 2020. "What's happening to jobs now that uni's done? I'm finishing uni with a 2:1 and I'm looking for jobs but I'm finding none. It started off cool when exams begun, but I'm getting kinda stressed now exams are done."
The questions move on to how Johnson plans to repay the healthcare workers in the National Health Service and key workers working on the frontline of the pandemic. "So, how are you gonna pay back those in the NHS? That's the question on everyone's tongue. And how are you gonna pay back those key workers, man, that's the question that everyone's brung."
V.I.C. spoke to Mashable over email about the inspiration behind this absolute earworm of a freestyle. As he mentions in the TikTok video, V.I.C. has just finished a three-year degree at the University of Reading studying economics and finance. His main passion is music and since his first year at university, he's been writing and performing his own music by sharing weekly freestyles on his Instagram. "At the moment I have moved back home to Middlesborough as the job which I had lined up after uni fell through due to the lack of hiring because of COVID-19," V.I.C. told me.
"I write a lot of my raps from things which I am going through and also from things which people around me are going through, so seeing as a lot of people were asking the same questions which I had, I thought I’d make it into rap form as that’s how I express myself," he added.
Since V.I.C. started sharing his freestyles on TikTok, he's noticed that the raps pertaining to lockdown have gained the most traction. "I feel like the more people the raps relate to the better it performs on the app," he added.
I think we've found ourselves a pandemic anthem.
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
