Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
“From the root to the fruit!” says Salih Williams, describing his lifelong devotion to the one of the most wretched teams in professional football today. “I’m a die-hard Redskins fanatic. . . . But the Redskins is like a girl I know I shouldn’t mess with: I keep coming back.”
It’s Monday afternoon at Sound Spa Studios in Alexandria, where Williams is sporting an oversize white T-shirt emblazoned with his alias Bootsy Vegas.
As the newest addition to the Donnie Simpson morning show on WPGC 95.5, Bootsy appears every Wednesday to crack jokes and present his weekly anthem dedicated to Washington’s once unconditionally loved football franchise.
But with the Redskins looking particularly inept this season, cheering them to victory becomes an increasingly tough gig. Over the course of seven weeks, Williams’s tunes have transformed from puffy-chested boasts into droopy-shouldered laments.
Last week, after a humiliating loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, Williams rapped to a vintage Geto Boys beat: “At night I can’t sleep, I turn and toss/Think about my ‘Skins and the game we just lost.”
Williams usually puts his songs to tape after watching (and often suffering through) Sunday’s game, but this week he had his work cut out for him. With the Redskins facing the Philadelphia Eagles on “Monday Night Football,” he needed to record a tune that would captivate fans through the Redskins’ upcoming bye week, regardless of the game’s outcome.
He settled on a go-go rendition of “Hail to the Redskins,” the beloved fight song that has kept burgundy and gold blood pumping since the 1930s. Rechristening the song “Redskins Go-Go,” he gave the lyrics a modern tweak and rounded them out with a rap verse. “It’s still the same from back in the day,” he rhymes, waxing nostalgic. “When the seats used to rock at the R-F-K!”
“Go-go is like the Redskins,” Williams says. “It’s in you. If you’re from D.C., it’s in you.”
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Click the audio arrow below to listen to Booty’s latest Redskins Go-Go song:
