A basketball and tennis gold medallist cunningly weaved eight references to American rap group Wu-Tang to jazz up a discussion on disability funding.
Dylan Alcott, a Triple-J breakfast DJ, responded to calls from his listeners to add some subliminal 1990s hip-hop allusions to his live Q&A appearance.
The 27-year-old Melbourne-based Paralympian, who won gold in 2008 and 2016, did just that, dropping in references to three Wu-Tang hits from 25 years ago.
Dylan Alcott, a Triple-J breakfast DJ, responded to calls from his listeners to add some subliminal 1990s hip-hop allusions to his Q&A appearance, and began with a two-handed wave
He began by describing how he struggled about having a disability as a kid, after waving at the Sydney studio audience with Wu Tang’s two-handed salute.
‘I was really embarrassed about the fact that I had a disability. It was rough and tough like leather for me,’ he told the ABC panel show.
In their 1993 video clip C.R.E.A.M., Wu Tang rapper Gary Grice, known as GZA, recited the line: ‘Times is rough and tough like leather.’
In another reference to Cash Rules Everything Around Me, Alcott claimed funding was tight for the federal government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme.
‘If something happens tomorrow, it’s gone. I know it’s gone. And I think cash rules everything around the NDIS,’ he said.
In a reference to Cash Rules Everything Around Me (pictured), Alcott described how growing up with a disability was ‘rough and tough like leather’
Continuing the theme, he used another Wu-Tang reference to slam the bureaucrats running the disability care program.
‘These parties are trying to protect themselves, protect their neck, in the sense that they don’t want to always stick their neck out,’ he said.
Alcott, who requires a wheelchair because of a birth tumour around his spine, referenced another 1993 hit, Protect Ya Neck, to accuse bureaucrats of having ‘short arms and deep pockets’.
It didn’t stop there, with Alcott continuing with the hip-hop theme to describe why people with disabilities would make great employees because they were more reliable.
Alcott referenced Cash Rules Everything Around Me to claim National Disability Insurance Scheme funding was tight
‘And I think that’s, like, the cream of the crop,’ he said.
The sports and media celebrity, who has played wheelchair tennis against Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger, used another Wu-Tang reference, this time from Method Man, to slam employers for asking candidates if they had a disability.
He was describing how, as a younger man, he had to lie about his disability on online application forms just to get a job interview.
Continuing the theme, he used another Wu-Tang reference to slam the bureaucrats running the disability care program, saying they were out to ‘protect their neck’
‘You know, they had no idea about my style, anything about me at all, really,’ he said.
In their other 1993 single, Wu-Tang rapped: ‘Hey you, get off my cloud, you don’t know me and you don’t know my style.’
Triple-J has released a YouTube compilation of Alcott making six references to three 1993 Wu-Tang hits, and doing the rap group’s wave twice.
It has already been viewed more than 55,000 times.