It looks like there’s a turf war brewing. Nassau (County) State of Mind, a remix of Jay Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” was an instant viral hit, and Suffolk got a little jealous. So a group of Suffolk residents fired back with their own video Tuesday.
If this were the 1950s, they’d meet in a park at dusk and have a rumble. But since its 2010, they’re battling in cyberspace. Namely, the mean streets of YouTube.
The minds behind Suffolk (County) State of Mind rap about many of the same things as their Nassau enemies: traffic, shopping malls (Americana Manhasset vs. Tanger Outlets), pizza, italian ices and bagels. They also do their fair share of Nassau-slamming (“Nassau couldn’t compete/even on Suffolk’s worse day.”)
In their defense, Nassau attacked first (“Suffolk’s for the working class…”). Tyler Gilden, the Syracuse University film student and Long Island native who produced the Nassau video, was blown away by the response so far.
“I knew the video would be pretty good, but I completely underestimated how big it would be,” Gildin told his school newspaper, The Daily Orange. “I was shocked by how many people, especially parents and older people, were posting the video on their Facebooks and mass e-mailing it.”
While both videos have sparked ardent diatribes of Nassau and Suffolk loyalists—many of which we cannot quote here—Nassau (county) State of Mind leads with more than 650,000 views and counting since being posted Aug. 13.
West Babylon-based radio station WBLI FM, which is mentioned in the Suffolk video, currently has a poll where fans can vote which video is the best.