Tyga’s new song “Dope’d Up” is confusing from the second you read the title. Why is there an apostrophe in Dope’d? What letters are missing? What is Dope’d a contraction for? Why would anyone title a song that seems to promote drug use?
Unfortunately, the unanswered questions only multiply from there. The repeated refrain, which is yelled for approximately half of the song, is “I hit the game like a dope’d up needle.” This phrase is relatively difficult to decipher: one might assume that a “dope’d up needle” refers to a needle used for drugs, but how does this needle “hit the game?”
Perhaps to clear up this rampant confusion, Tyga produced a music video to accompany his song. Unfortunately the music video has less to do with the song it accompanies than possibly any music video ever produced.
The “Dope’d Up” video primarily features Tyga and Kylie Jenner. Kylie plays the role of Tyga’s girlfriend in this music video. Since Kylie is actually Tyga’s girlfriend in real life, one might think the feat would not require much acting, but Kylie struggles significantly playing the role of herself.
The video begins with Tyga and Kylie lounging in the back of a Rolls Royce — a fairly “dope’d up,” car as Tyga would say, so the video makes it seem as if the song refers to material luxury.
However, Kylie and Tyga’s car then breaks down and as they exit the car, the couple hear their chauffeur being dismembered by zombies. The violent murder of their elderly driver by alley-dwelling zombies prompts Tyga’s compassionate reaction: “Sucks we have to walk.” The emotionless and apparently undisturbed duo begins to walk, and then the beat drops.
As the repetitive lyrics of “dope’d up” needles fill your ears, Kylie and Tyga inexplicably walk into what seems to be a haunted house. They progress slowly through the house, occasionally showing mild emotional reactions to the various horrific creatures they encounter. The video depicts a pair of disappearing bloody twins, a blood-covered scientist, an insane freak who is both entranced and electrocuted by a conglomeration of televisions and, finally, a flesh-hungry herd of assorted zombies.
Then comes the real twist: Tyga wakes up, and everything was just a dream. Then comes another twist: Kylie is a zombie, and the video ends with her leaning in for a big bite of Tyga’s face.
If the song and video aim to portray what being “dope’d up” is like, then they might better serve as drug prevention advertisements rather than as musical entertainment because, yes, they’re that off putting.
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