Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson made his rap debut on Tech N9ne's track "Face Off."
His verse, which includes the lyrics "it's about drive, it's about power," went viral on TikTok.
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Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's rap debut on Tech N9ne's song "Face Off" has gone viral on TikTok, with its lyrics sparking a wave of hustle culture memes.
"It's about drive, it's about power / we stay hungry, we devour," Johnson raps on the track's final verse. "Put in the work, put in the hours and take what's ours." He wrote the verse himself, per Variety. "Face Off" was released in October on Tech N9ne's album "Asin9ne" and also features Joey Cool and King Iso.
An upload of Johnson's verse has been used in over 48,000 videos on TikTok, amassing millions of cumulative views in the process.
It's been propelled by a flood of memes that have applied his words to satirical videos about fitness, superhuman feats, or even school. While the subject matter varies, the format is relatively uniform: upon hearing Johnson rap "it's about drive, it's about power," users show themselves doing sped-up weight lifting reps, blasting through assignments, or doing household chores. It's a satirical take on extreme fitness and "hustle" culture, which glorifies overwork.
Tech N9Ne told Variety that "Face Off" is an "energy song" that he envisioned people using to "get people pumped up to lift weights, pumped up for fights, pumped up for the game." The rapper said that he wanted a fighter on the track, and following Johnson's work on the Disney film "Moana," he knew that the former wrestler and actor "had the rhythm."
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Amid the flood of memes, Johnson's verse has also turned into a copypasta - a memetic set of text that people spam online - that populates comment sections on related videos.
An example of the lyric copypasta that's circulating on TikTok and features Johnson's lyrics, left on a TikTok video published by @alexsmithlovesyou.
@alexsmithlovesyou/@real_nigerianprince/TikTok
The song's popularity on TikTok hasn't come without its fair share of critique, with some TikTok users posting viral videos calling the verse "trash" and asking people to "please stop hyping this." Those criticisms, however, are balanced out by people defending the track and others saying that it's grown on them.
"Why I'm a actually starting to like this so- ITS ABOUT DRIVE ITS ABOUT POWER," one comment with over 103,000 likes from user @jotarokujo8315 on @hotpockets55's video about the song reads.
On Wednesday, Johnson himself finally got in on the fun on TikTok for the first time since the day of the song's release.
"THANK YOU for rockin' HARD on our #FACEOFF," Johnson said in the caption of a Wednesday TikTok post about the fan reception to the song that features clips of videos set to his verse, some of which appear to be memes.
Less than an hour after the video was posted, its comments section were beginning predictably fill up with one set of words, repeated by brand accounts including those of the Pittsburg Steelers and the Dallas Mavericks: "It's about drive, it's about power / we stay hungry, we devour."
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