It’s never easy for brands to go viral, but the Minions might have just set the new blueprint.
“Minions: The Rise of Gru” smashed a Fourth of July record at the box office, bringing in a whopping $125 million during the holiday weekend. Much of that is thanks to Yeat, the buzzing rapper who concocted a woozy, Minions-themed anthem.
The song doesn’t appear in the movie, but it soundtracks a movie trailer created by Cole Bennett and his multimedia company, Lyrical Lemonade. Over undulating synths, Yeat counts his money while calling his kids his Minions and boasting about how much the brand paid him for the song.
True to Yeat’s mysterious nature, we never get a straight answer — first he says, “Made a song for the Minions/ How much they pay me? A million,” but by the second verse, he’s switched up his tune to say, “Made this song for like $2 million, you know I always win.”
Almost as soon as the song was out, Gen Z TikTokers made it go viral. After movie theaters have struggled to get people back to the big screens in the wake of the pandemic, they were soon overrun with suit-and-tie-wearing teens flocking in droves to mosh in the rows.
Although some theaters have been upset by what they consider disruptive behavior, the franchise likely isn’t complaining — 13- to 17-year-olds made up more than 30% of the film’s audience during opening weekend, according to Boxoffice Pro.
Yeat’s no stranger to viral success: His songs “Monëy so big,” “Sorry Bout That” and “Gët Busy” have been unavoidable on TikTok (the latter of which is all because of a bell). But although Yeat has ignored interview requests, festivals and virtually all the things desired by many rising artists, the Minions were simply too lovable to ignore.
“We’ve turned down a lot of things—basically everything, actually,” Zack Bia, who signed Yeat to Field Trip Records, recently told Complex. “We’ve always opted to do things our own way—passing on interview opportunities and producing our own magazine, or passing on festivals and opting for our own smaller tour run to create the experience that we wanted.”
The idea to call up Yeat for the trailer came from Bennett, who has created infectious music videos for the likes of Juice Wrld and Lil Tecca. Illumination, the animation company responsible for the “Minions” franchise, tapped Bennett for the movie’s trailer two years ago, and after the director initially planned to play it safe, he had a last-minute change of heart.
“We already had somebody locked in and ready to go, but I was like, ‘Guys, I have this feeling right now that I want to make a pivot,’” Bennett told Complex. “I was like, ‘There’s this artist, and a lot of his catalog is about things that don’t mesh well with the “Minions” aesthetic.’”
“‘He mentions drugs and money and all sorts of things,’” Bennett continued. “‘But I really think he’s the perfect fit for this. He grew up watching “Minions,” he has this sound that somehow complements “Minions,” and I can get him to make a PG song about “Minions” for this trailer.’”
Bennett remembers the suits at Illumination being initially unsure of the idea but eventually coming around to it.
“Cole called me and was like, ‘I’m doing this “Minions” trailer. What do you think about Yeat doing it?’ And I told him I thought it was genius,” Bia said. “The idea of Yeat and the Minions movie collaborating is just so left field, but at the same time it inexplicably makes sense. There’s the meme aspect of it, and the fact that Yeat could tackle it in a way that would make it something fun and viral.”
“I was like, ‘I have no idea what he’s going to rap about,’” Bennett told Complex. “I was so curious what he was going to say. But as soon as I heard ‘I count money,’ I was like, ‘Oh, this is outta here. This is crazy.’ And then when the first ‘Minions’ reference came in, I was like, ‘Oh, this is insane,’ especially when he said, ‘I just pulled up in a Tonka with all of the Minions, we takin’ a picture.’”
Yeat still hasn’t said a word publicly about the song’s viral success. Only time will tell if the next blockbuster movie tries to copy his formula with Bennett.