Listen! Doug Widick is a national treasure, and it’s time we start to recognize.
A founding member of hip-hop improv troupe North Coast NYC and a stalwart on the severely underappreciated musical-sketch group Pop Roulette (featuring SNLers Sudi Green and Bowen Yang), Widick consistently creates some of the catchiest musical comedy on the internet. One look at Hulk Hands is all you’ll need to recognize game. In some ways, he’s the Lonelier Island — a one-man composition, joke-writing, and performance machine — and while we’ve tracked his work before, never have we ever given him a proper shout-out.
That changes today.
Over the weekend, Widick premiered on his Instagram and YouTube channels a modestly filmed performance from the Lower East Side’s Cabernet Cabaret a little ditty called “Jackson Pollock.†The song — a confluence of Migos’s skeletal staccato with the unpretentious introspection of Andy, Jorma, and Akiva — sees Widick listing things out in the world that make him think of the great impressionist painter, from hair on the ground to a flock of crows. One watch will send you down a D-hole (that’s a Doug hole, for the uninitiated), where you’ll bear witness to Widick’s multiple talents and wonder why you don’t know his name.
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Luke is executive producer at Big Breakfast and a watcher of many web videos. Send him yours @LKellyClyne.