The man behind Donkey Kong 64’s well-known rap number has spoken out about how, two decades later, the song is part of his lasting legacy. Donkey Kong 64 was the first 3D outing for Donkey Kong and his friends. Following the tried and tested formulaic plot, the game follows DK as he solves puzzles and minigames to rescue his friends from the menacing King K. Rool, all while stocking up on bananas and barrels. The game was a success for Nintendo and developers Rare on its release, becoming the best-selling Nintendo game for the 1999 holiday season. One aspect of the game in particular though was not met with praise on its debut – The Donkey Kong Rap introduction.
The rap song that featured so notoriously on the Nintendo 64 has since gone from lively game introduction to a nostalgic reworking in Nintendo’s 2001 Super Smash Bros. Melee. It also has a place in Nintendo’s GameCube rhythm-based game, Donkey Konga. But what does its composer feel about the song and the public’s initial reaction to it now?
Grant Kirkhope penned the infamous number for the Nintendo 64 bestseller, as well as the rest of the score for Donkey Kong 64 in the 90s. The idea of including a rap as part of the introduction to the gameplay started off as an in-office joke. It was all meant to be a bit of light-hearted silliness. Unfortunately for Kirkhope and his peers, this backfired on them. The Donkey Kong Rap went on to become widely panned by critics. However now, 21 years after its initial release, he can look back on the song and smile. Speaking to GamesRadar, Kirkhope admits that, despite people not getting the joke at the time, he is glad that he wrote it. He relates how it is a fun thing for people to take the mickey out him for, and how his teenage son and his mates know all the words to it. “None of those guys were born when I did that and it's incredible that they know every word”, Kirkhope tells the gaming website.
Despite its poor reception in the 90s, the Donkey Kong Rap, and Kirkhope, have found their redemption. The children who played the game after its initial release and saw the song as the piece of fun that it was intended to be, have grown up and look back on it with fondness. The perspective on the gaming musical number has changed over the last 20 years for the better.
Even though Grant Kirkhope found his rap being met with little success on its original release, this has not stopped him from doing it again. He went on to pen another gaming rap number for 2017’s Yooka-Laylee, which had more than a few nods to the Nintendo 64 days; the beat is unmistakably the same as DKs. And while it may not have generated as much attention as Donkey Kong 64’s rap, it does tell us that Kirkhope hasn’t lost his sense of humor over the whole thing.
Source: GamesRadar