Adele has expressed her appreciation for the erm… unorthodox Olympic breakdancing performance of Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, calling it the “best thing” in the Paris games.
“It’s all me and my friends have been talking about,” Adele said during the fourth show of her Munich residency (get tickets here). “I think it’s the best thing that’s happened in the Olympics the entire time… I can’t work out if it was a joke, but either way, it has made me very very happy.”
She continued, “Me and my friends have been shitting ourselves laughing for nearly 24 hours. I just wanted to know if you’ve seen it, ’cause if you haven’t seen it, please leave the show and Google it because it is lolz. It is so fucking funny.”
See clips of Adele’s concert banter and Raygun’s performance below.
Much of the internet was wondering the same thing about Gunn’s bizarre performance, which featured a literal kangaroo hop. As it turns out, the 36-year-old university professor has a PhD in Cultural Studies and has been writing about the Australian breakdancing scene for quite some time.
In 2022, Gunn co-wrote a paper about “ownership, authenticity, and identity” in hip-hop culture that explored what it meant to be a white woman learning a dance form created by Black and Puerto Rican youth. So, it appears that the Olympics partly served as an academic exercise.
For what it’s worth, the breaking community has stood behind Gunn. “Breaking is all about originality and bringing something new to the table and representing your country or region,” head judge Martin Gilian said at a press conference. “This is exactly what Raygun was doing. She got inspired by her surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.”
Earlier in the Munich residency, Adele paused a concert to show the Olympic women’s 100m final. After finishing up this current run of shows, she will return to Las Vegas for the remainder of her “Weekends With Adele” residency in October and November. Grab your seats here.
@samyahafsaoui Going to Adele is seeing a really good comedy show with incredible live music #adeleinmunich #raygun #olympics
Aussie break dancer Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn has to be trolling the entire world🤣#Olympics📷 #raygun #Paris2024📷 #breaking #breakdancing #aussie #Australia pic.twitter.com/tiCz6UVCJh
— immutable truth 💎 (@ImmutabullTruth) August 10, 2024