This Granny Turns Rap’s Biggest Hits Into Gospel Anthems

There is no end to the internet's trove of unofficial remixes, covers, and mash-ups. But while acoustic covers of rap songs have launched the professional careers of acts like Karmin and Niykee Heaton, it's time for the twee subset to move over. These days, a new genre of hip-hop interpolations is the wave: a granny remixing viral rap songs in the style of the most fervent gospel. When a friend sent me a YouTube video of what was ostensibly someone's grandmother, dressed in her finest church hat, remixing O.T. Genasis' "CoCo," I became so obsessed with it that I immediately ripped the MP3 from YouTube and put it on my iPhone.

After a little more digging, though, I discovered that the fire remix does not actually originate from a with-it 60-year-old. Rather, it comes courtesy of hair dresser, singer, and comedian James Wright, who posts all manner of videos to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, many of them in the character of the granny his question. And it turns out there's more in the series, too. Hit up Wright's YouTube channel to see his gospel take on iLoveMakonnen's "Club Goin' Up on a Tuesday," Dej Loaf's "Try Me," YG's "Bicken Back Bein Bool," and his yuletide mash-up of Sage the Gemini's "Red Nose" with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." The remixes' only downside? Wright shoots in vertical video, in true granny style.