Never in my days of covering music or sitting at home watching men’s singles figure skating (don’t pretend like you haven’t) did I think something like this would be happening… at the 2018 US Nationals this week, skater Jimmy Ma made the bold choice of putting a little EDM into his routine. However, if you’re thinking it was something downtempo or ambient to match the style of figure skating, you’d be dead wrong.
Instead, he chose to feature two DJ Snake tracks, namely “Propaganda” and “Turn Down For What” with Lil Jon. The announcers were understandably taken aback by the choices, and their commentary is one of the best parts of the video hands down. Not to mention calling “Propaganda” house music, it just sounds exactly like what you’d expect a bunch of mid-40s figure skating judges to sound like (even though they’re in their early-30s) when talking about dance music in the frame of figure skating.
Even mainstream media coverage of the event has us in shambles, with USA Today reporting, “If you’re unfamiliar with those [songs], you are (a) over 25, and (b) should do a YouTube search as it will provide a better description than anything I can offer through words.”
“Figure skating is an extreme sport,” Ma told USA Today Sports after competing. “I want the most amount of people to see that it is both an awesome art form and also an awesome sport. The whole point was to get people hyped. Get older people hyped and for younger people to think it is cool.”
Watch his full routine below.