mic drop
mic drop – sostantivo
drop the mic – locuzione
You can’t do a mic drop, walk off stage and then come back and say just kidding.
A “mic drop” is the rap/comedy parallel to spiking a football. It says, “My performance was so definitive that there’s nothing more to say.”
No mic drop in history will ever be as thoroughly scrutinised as the one performed by Barack Obama during his final White House correspondents’ dinner.
After singing “The Greatest Love of All,” Watson triumphantly shouts out, “Sexual Chocolate!” and drops the mic.
Al termine dell’ultimo discorso da presidente alla tradizionale cena per i corrispondenti della Casa Bianca, la scorsa primavera, Barack Obama si è congedato con quella che è diventata presto una chiusa virale: ha detto “Obama out”, si è messo due dita sulle labbra e ha lasciato cadere il microfono platealmente. Chissà quanti si saranno chiesti cosa volesse dire? Be’, il gesto accompagnato dalla frase significa: “Basta, passo e chiudo, sono stato insuperabile”. E il fatto che Obama sia appassionato di basket e abbia voluto così rendere omaggio a uno dei più grandi cestisti di sempre, Kobe Bryant, ritiratosi dallo sport due settimane prima con lo stesso gesto e le parole “Mamba out” (Bryant era soprannominato Black Mamba), è sfuggito a molti ma non a Robert J. Elisberg dell’Huffington Post.
Il mic drop si usa nell’ambiente dei rapper e in quello dei comici americani sin dagli anni ’80 come gesto a effetto con cui manifestare la convinzione che la propria prestazione – che si tratti di sport, di uno spettacolo o di un discorso – sia stata il non plus ultra: si rompe il microfono perché non servirà più.
Origini del termine
L’abbreviazione mic, pronunciato come mike, risale agli anni ’60 mentre mic drop agli ’80.
Traduzione di Loredana Riu
mic drop – noun
drop the mic – phrase
You can’t do a mic drop, walk off stage and then come back and say just kidding.
A “mic drop” is the rap/comedy parallel to spiking a football. It says, “My performance was so definitive that there’s nothing more to say.”
No mic drop in history will ever be as thoroughly scrutinised as the one performed by Barack Obama during his final White House correspondents’ dinner.
After singing “The Greatest Love of All,” Watson triumphantly shouts out, “Sexual Chocolate!” and drops the mic.
When President Obama gave his final address to the White House Correspondents gathered for their traditional dinner last spring, he ended with what has become a signature move: he said “Obama out”, raised two fingers to his lips, and dropped the microphone. This was not a moment of unaccustomed clumsiness but rather a way of saying: “That’s it, folks, beat that if you can.” The fact that the basketball fan’s gesture was a direct homage to one of the sport’s greats, Kobe Bryant, who had bowed out only two weeks earlier with the same gesture and the words “Mamba out”, was lost on many but noted by Huffington Post author Robert J. Elisberg.
The mic drop has its roots in rap music and comedy whose practitioners started performing the move in the 80s as a way of boasting that their performance was so definitive it could not be bettered: if the mic is damaged or destroyed then no one else can pick it up and perform. The expression is also used metaphorically to indicate that a statement or performance cannot be improved on.
Origins
The abbreviation mic, pronounced the same as mike, started to be used in the 1960s while the compound mic drop dates back to the 1980s.
