NBC’s Brian Williams and Lester Holt Cover “Rapper’s Delight,” Flow On Point
I don’t know if it’s just because it’s the show’s debut week, or if we need to start thinking about dedicating an entire section to all of the greatness that goes down on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In only three episodes, we’ve seen Fallon and Will Smith run through the history of hip-hop dancing, U2 perform on top of New York City, Kristin Wiig’s Harry Styles impersonation, a stand-up set from Jerry Seinfeld, Fallon and a barbershop quartet covering R. Kelly’s “Ignition (Remix)” and, now, perhaps one of the greatest supercuts of all-time, a cobbled together montage of NBC’s Brian Williams and Lester Holt covering the seminal 1979 Sugar Hill Gang hip-hop track “Rapper’s Delight.”
The most remarkable thing about this piece of Internet glory is how well-timed all of the cuts are. A rapper’s flow is hard to duplicate and there are plenty of other supercut covers out there that try and fail to actually make it sound like the finished product is a legitimate cover instead of a syncopated mishmash of stitched-together one-word clips. Just close your eyes for a second as you listen to Williams and Holt go at it; it sounds pretty damn close to what one would imagine it would sound like if they were actually covering the classic track. Hats off to Fallon’s team, once again.
Check out the video above. The moment when Williams passes it off to Holt (around :40) is priceless.