Maybe you've heard! Taylor Swift has a new single called "Shake It Off." It's taken from her upcoming "pop" album, 1989, and it has a video:
View this video on YouTube
Co-written by Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback, the song's also got a brief spoken interlude, followed by a bridge where Swift raps:
Bruh! Taylor Swift said HELLA?!
To some, this came as a surprise:
DID I JUST SEE TAYLOR SWIFT RAP
LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT IS THE RAP VERSION OF MILEY CYRUS
I rap like Taylor Swift too
In the "Shake It Off" video, directed by Mark Romanek, Swift crawls through a line of twerkers...
...touches a boom box...
...and rocks gold hoops.
She also tries her hand at tutting — the hand dancing that's popular on Vine.
Which came off, to some others, as "doing rap hands."
Taylor Swift doing rap hands? Why, Lord? *closes tab*
What I think I look like vs what I actually look like when I listen to Chief Keef & throw gang signs in my cubicle
But this isn't the first time Swift has dabbled in rap, or rap culture. Back in 2009, she and T-Pain made a comedy video called "Thug Story" for the CMT Awards.
The imagery of "Shake It Off" isn't as questionable as that of "Thug Story," in which Swift wears a grill and calls herself "T-Swizzie."
Here's the whole thing:
View this video on YouTube
Swift tried rapping again in 2011, when she was coaxed into doing a verse from Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" by a Nashville radio jock.
View this video on YouTube
"I'm not gonna do it right now. That's for the car, just picture it," Taylor said to the host, before launching tentatively into the verse, which Selena Gomez had expertly performed several weeks earlier.
Apparently, these days, she's more confident.
