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Snoop Dogg is the man. This is an indisputable fact of life. The classic rapper has won 26 different major awards in his career and been nominated for 95. He’s an OG of rap and one of the chillest people on the planet.
But not even his decades-spanning success, wealth and popularity could save him from being upstaged at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Yes, someone at the concert brought it even harder than Snoop…and it was his sign language interpreter. That’s right, you heard me, err, you saw me sign that out to you.
Holly Maniatty is a certified sign language interpreter and also a certified badass baller after her performance at the Festival. Maniatty absolutely crushes the sign-version of Snoop’s take on 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” Watch the video if you don’t believe me.
Maniatty has worked a number of festivals and concerts with popular rappers including the Beastie Boys, Wu-Tan Clan and Killer Mike. So, yeah, her street cred is through the friggin’ roof.
Think about how impossibly hard signing the rapid fire lyrics of hip-hop must be. And to deliver it with such swag? Maniatty is by new hero.
“In order to make the interpretations as authentic as possible so the deaf patron is getting as close to the same experience as the hearing people are getting, I’m using signs that are, you know, indigenous to where that person, you know, grew up, or where they’re from or where they’re living currently,” she said in a radio interview in 2013.
She adds, “It’s a little overwhelming because I don’t think of myself as in front of people. I guess I am in front of a lot of people but I’m always so absorbed in doing a good job—it’s just about the deaf patrons who are there.”
Now all we need is a fire Maniatty mix tape and we’re good.
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