Jimothy

About

Jimothy is the stage name of British rapper Timothy Gonzalez. After breaking through in 2017, he has had a series of minor hits on YouTube. In August of 2021, he was profiled by the New York Times, though their tweet praising him was mocked online, as people joked about his name and the Times' distinction that he wasn't a rapper who focused "on sex, drugs, and expensive cars."

History

Jimothy, who used to go by the stage name Jimothy Lacoste, began posting music online in 2016^[1] before he broke through with the July 28th, 2017 release of his song "Getting Busy." The song gained over 654,000 views on YouTube in four years (shown below). His success online has been attributed to his comedic music videos, which feature him dancing in strange places and have a lo-fi production value.

In the years since "Getting Busy," Jimothy has released multiple tracks, including songs like "Describe My Life" shown below, left) and "I Can Speak Spanish" (shown below, right), which both gained hundreds of thousands of views.

Online Presence

Jimothy has a modest online presence as of August 2021. He has over 25,000 subscribers on YouTube^[2] and 51,000 followers on Instagram.^[3]

New York Times Headline

On August 22nd, 2021, the New York Times published a profile of Jimothy.^[4] The article praised Jimothy's uniqueness—in particular, one piece of praise from the article read, "While other rappers brag about sex, drugs and expensive cars, Jimothy raps about his ambition to one day earn enough money to shop at upmarket supermarkets and listening to his mother’s advice." The quote was used in a tweet the Times used while promoting the article.^[5] The tweet and article were criticized for suggesting that "clean rap" is better than rap about sex or drugs, a tired trope in music criticism. Twitter user @VanLathan^[6] wrote, "Y’all did jimothy no favors with this tiki torch ass headline," recalling the white nationalist Unite The Right Rally in which the participants notably held tiki torches (shown below, left). Other users learning of Jimothy for the first time cracked jokes about his name. Twitter user @DesusNice^[7] posted the tweet and captioned it, "imagine being in the whip and telling someone to 'turn up that jimothy my guy,' gaining over 1,700 retweets and 20,000 likes (shown below, right).

Furthermore, others pointed out that the Times' claim that Jimothy "didn't rap about drugs" was inaccurate, as one of his most popular songs on YouTube is called "Drugs."

Search Interest

External References