Watch Ratking’s Warped New York Ode, “So It Goes”

Ratking will be playing NYU's annual fall concert tonight, welcoming wide-eyed freshman from across the world to Washington Square Park alongside Jamie xx and Ghostface Killah. In our cover story on the New York trio, T. Cole Rachel zeroes in on their send up of the ever-expanding university: "On “Snow Beach," Hak describes the infiltration of Washington Square Park by NYU students like he’s a doctor diagnosing a disease: Infecting the apple, a cancer in its heart/ Why’d you make a campus out the park?" The guys can sneer their way out of hypocrisy here--what better middle finger to raise to John Sexton than coming up on a check? But on "So It Goes" they still play both sides of the fence, jealously guarding the iconography of the city they claim, but churning out a warped, progressive twist on classic NY rap that seems tailored to be lapped up by the very transplants they scorn. Spit where you want, nigga, don't give a damn, Hak raps, with all the open invitation of a Welcome Week pamphlet.