Busta Rhymes Makes Bizarre Cameo in Controversial ‘Swagger Wagon’ Ad
Busta Rhymes has made an appearance in a new minivan commercial that has gone viral, mostly because of his costars: a stereotypical white nuclear family, called the Neuberts, who feel the need to rap about the vehicle, calling it a “swagger wagon.” The video is an update of Toyota’s 2010 viral ad, which showed off another white family using “mother-father” as a replacement for a certain 12-letter word and garnered more than 12.5 million YouTube views.
The new version opens with a young girl threatening “mother-fathers” to “wash your mouth out with soap” for calling the vehicle a minivan, before Papa Neubert switches between using “rap” phrases like “who that is” and “dad” lines like, “rules are rules.” By the time the clip stalls out for a few seconds of admitted product placement for satellite radio – a device Mama Neubert uses to introduce Rhymes – Papa Neubert turns skeptical and sarcastically says, “I’m looking forward to this” (maybe because he’s already uneasy about Rhymes affectionately sidling up to Mama Neubert at the end of his verse.)
For his part, Rhymes appears as an enthusiastic pitchman, saying likes like, “Trust me, I’m digging your wagon,” and offering up this closing verse: “We go across the almanac/ Yeah, I know who be the waviest/ But when it come to this cul-de-sac/ This family is the craziest.”
As far as viral ads go, the clip harkens back to Burger King’s controversial 2012 Mary J. Blige clip, in which she sang about fried chicken wraps, spurring criticism for playing up racial stereotypes. Burger King removed the clip, allegedly due to copyright licensing.