Sonic gets far better music video movie tie-in than he deserves, courtesy of Wiz Khalifa and friends

“Speed Me Up,” as its title warns, is littered with goofy references to the Sonic games. Verses featuring Khalifa and guests Lil Yachty, Ty Dolla $ign, and Sueco The Child treat us to lines like Yachty’s incredibly funny “stand in my lane/best friend named Tails/balance running on rails,” as well as bits about Knuckles and “rings of gold.” But, if you ignore that stuff (and the frequent Sonic game sound effects), it’s also a catchy as hell song with a music video that, while incredibly dumb, is a cornucopia of hilarious imagery. Khalifa blows into a Genesis cartridge and gets sucked into the game, transforming into a pixelated version of himself who, along with the track’s guests, runs fast enough that his legs turn into blurry circles. They also avoid Robotnik’s evil drones and visit 16-bit-style versions of sets from the movie, which are then shown through clips of the actual film.

The history of promotional tie-in songs is littered with shit like Vanilla Ice rapping about ninja turtles, Chad Kroeger over-dramatically wailing about superheroes, and Will Smith creating novelty tracks themed around movies he stars in. In lieu of the many, many, many moral implications of digging out Michael Jackson’s probably-existing Sonic-themed songs, this is probably the most listenable movie promo song we could have hoped for. If nothing else, it also backs down from the implicit threat of the first Sonic trailer’s baffling use of “Gangster’s Paradise” as its soundtrack, letting us know that no, that track probably won’t be used for a credits sequence.

[via The Verge]

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