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In a 91-second rap parody, Raven Baxter turns COVID-19 safety advice into a viral chorus
Released on the first weekday of New York's statewide shutdown, the remix of Lil Boosie's "Wipe Me Down" taught disinfecting, handwashing and staying home to viewers nationwide
Baxter raps what scientists knew about the new coronavirus in March 2020 at a whiteboard in the Wipe It Down video. Photo: Raven the Science Maven video
Raven Baxter released "Wipe It Down," a COVID-19 safety rap, on YouTube and social media on Monday, March 23, 2020. The 91-second parody of Lil Boosie's "Wipe Me Down" went viral within its first week.
The video opens on a chorus of cleaning advice. "Lysol, wipe it down / Clorox, wipe it down," Baxter raps in a lab coat, before the chorus adds "Wash your body / and wash your hands too." Later verses tell listeners to stay home, keep their distance and limit visits.
Baxter holds a spray bottle on a kitchen floor in the Wipe It Down video. Image: Raven the Science Maven video
The song arrived in the first days of the pandemic in the United States. On March 11, the World Health Organization's director-general said COVID-19 "can be characterized as a pandemic". On March 17, federal and university scientists published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine on how long the virus lasted in the air and on surfaces. New York's "PAUSE" order, signed March 20 as confirmed cases reached 7,102, closed non-essential businesses' workplaces from 8 p.m. on Sunday, March 22.
At a whiteboard labeled "Novel Coronavirus COVID-19," Baxter raps what scientists knew then. "It's a virus with a corona, a crown, like a queen, spreads around in crowds, infects human beings," the verse goes. It spreads "in lil droplets that form in coughs and sneezes," she raps, and "we're still learning about the new diseases."
The idea came from the lab. "One of the techniques that we use in that area is called the sterile technique and in that technique you wipe things down," she told host Yasmin Young of 93.7 WBLK in Buffalo, in an interview posted March 25. "I realized how important it was to get the message out there that people do need to understand wiping it down is important."
She wrote the song in two hours and made the video in a day, Spectrum News Buffalo reported. She told the station that "many people who carry COVID-19 may not show symptoms, so it doesn't matter if you're coughing or sneezing, everybody needs to stay home and take precautions."
Baxter raps beside a staircase in the Wipe It Down video. Image: Raven the Science Maven video
In Buffalo, Spectrum News, WIVB, WKBW, WBLK and Buffalo Rising covered the song. WSVN in Miami ran the story, as did stations in Las Vegas, Sioux City and Kansas City. Baxter told WBLK that scientists and teachers had contacted her about engaging the public and underrepresented youth.
"I had a mother who said that her 4-year-old daughter can't stop singing it, it's stuck in her head and then her daughter keeps telling her that she wants to be a scientist," she told Spectrum News.
In May, she told WKBW she had wanted "something for the public and really just the everyday person to have and to be able to understand something about COVID-19." She was also studying how representation in her music videos affects how adults relate to science.
Baxter was then a doctoral student at the University at Buffalo and Director of Collegiate STEM Initiatives at Buffalo's Health Sciences Charter School. As Raven the Science Maven, she produces her own beats and writes and performs her lyrics.
Watch the music video on YouTube.
