Brian Williams visited The Tonight Show Monday, and Jimmy Fallon welcomed him with a rap video. Using the magic of editing, the newsman appeared to perform Snoop Dogg's 1994 hit, "Gin and Juice."
Of course, Fallon has been doing this to the 54-year-old NBC Nightly News anchor for years. Williams' reel has been re-cut to show him rapping Sugar Hill Gang's 1979 classic, "Rapper's Delight," N.W.A.'s 1988 smash, "Straight Outta Compton," and Dogg's 1992 debut single, "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang."
A few more NBC stars popped up in the "Gin and Juice" video, including Natalie Morales, Richard Engel and Lester Holt. "I had reservations about Lester," Williams joked. "It's because of his flow."
The viral videos have elevated Williams' profile, he said. "It's all anyone mentions to me anymore!" Last Thursday, fore example, he ran into Oscar winner Cuba Gooding, Jr. at the New York Rangers game. "He comes up to me and says, 'You are a huge figure in the rap and hip-hop community.'"
When Fallon inevitably creates another mashup, Williams hopes he picks a different rapper: Ludacris.
Fallon later listed his rap nicknames for Williams, including BriWi, B-Willy, B-Dubs and Honey Bri-Bri.
Williams wanted to set the record straight about his involvement in the clips. "People think I have somehow colluded into the making of these videos," he said. "Let's be clear...I've never said 'hippity.'"
"This is spooking me out because there's a guy, whose job for months has been sitting in an editing room looking at images of me and finding individual words. I've never said 'hippity.' Never! I know that he works here and I have never met him. If you're on my staff, I know your hopes, your fears, your dreams and I know all about your family. Your staff, I imagine, is a much more anonymous place," Williams told Fallon, delivery each dry joke perfectly. "C'mon, you've told me these are little people to you. That's exactly that phrased you used. But there's a guy who I've seen in the cafeteria, there's a guy who I've seen in elevators, who has looked at my face for a living, and it's spooky. It's frightening."
(E!, The Tonight Show and NBC Nightly News are all part of the NBCUniversal family.)