This performance closed this week's American Music Awards. Current lord of the Multipipe Korean rapper PSY has amassed something like 779 million views with his Gangnam Style video.
So who better to team up with on his coming-out performance than the man who did the equivalent thing 20 years ago, MC Hammer!
In 1991, Hammer's U Can't Touch This – featuring the catchphrase "Stop! Hammer time!" – won him best R&B song and Best Rap Solo performance at the Grammys, and drove sales of his album Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em to 18 million.
Subsequently the track Too Legit To Quit of the album of the same name did less well, but still helped its parent album to sales of 5 million. That was in 1991, and that was the last heard of the rapper MC Hammer, aka Hammer, aka Stanley Kirk Burrell. Until the night of 19 November 2012.
In other news, the video of Too Legit To Quit now sits at 228 000 views on YouTube. So much for cross-promotion. PSY probably picked Hammer for the joint for a bit of nostalgia value, and to give the anglo audience something to sing along to besides "Hey sexy lady".
That might be the last remaining dollop of pop-culture polish required to take his item of musical transcendence beyond a billion YouTube views and sear it into the subconscious of every connected human on earth.
This guy might actually be a genius. PSY, that is, not Hammer.
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