Comedian Zack Fox’s appearance on Kenny Beats‘ The Cave YouTube series resulted in the creation of “Jesus is the One (I Got Depression),” an unserious song that’s earned a surprisingly serious reception. It recently reached No. 1 on Spotify’s US Viral 50 chart, a position that Fox evidently doesn’t think it deserves. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the comedian disparaged his own song, saying its success is symptomatic of deeper problems with the music industry.
“This song is not special,” he said. “I’m not some sort of sage. I’m not even a rapper. This popped off because of how monotonous and how saturated rap has become in this viral-Spotify-TikTok environment. The whole barometer on this industry is completely wrecked… I’m a huge fan of hip-hop, but it’s so broken right now I bet someone could literally troll their way to the top. I literally did it.”
Kenny Beats noted that he’s been surprised by the reaction from major labels. “You would think the serious people on the industry side of things would be like, ‘Zack did a joke freestyle and that hit bigger than all these serious songs right now, we gotta fix something,‘” he said, “[Instead], all these A&Rs are hitting us up like, ‘Yo guys, you came up in a research meeting this week.’ They’re trying to throw money at it.”
“Jesus is the One (I Got Depression)” has earned nearly 4.5 million streams on Spotify and almost 100,000 pageviews on Genius. Fox and Kenny Beats' Verified episode has more than 1.8 million YouTube views in less than a month:
In the episode, Kenny Beats expressed frustration that the track was outperforming “all the serious shit that I’m working on,” laying some of the blame for its success on TikTok users. The short-form social video service has helped boost the song’s popularity, with users focusing in on the comedic lyrics:
Bitch, you better praise God or I'ma shoot, and that’s on God
I ain’t playin' ‘bout my Lord and Savior, I’m on my job
If you ain’t a Christian, I'ma stab you in the face
If it ain’t 'bout Jesus, I'ma hit you with this K
“Is it that people want something this meaningless, or is it that everything is already so meaningless that this fits right in?” Fox asked Rolling Stone. “I’ve never tried so intentionally to make something terrible in my entire life. I hate this shit.”
Although comedy music isn’t typically a huge performer on the charts, artists like “Weird Al” Yankovic have previously earned Gold and Platinum plaques with parody songs. Rapper Lil Dicky has also found success straddling the line between hip-hop and comedy.
Listen to the song above and read all the lyrics to Zack Fox and Kenny Beats' “Jesus is the One (I Got Depression)” on Genius now.
