“GIANTS” is the debut release of the hip hop collective True Damage put forth by the popular gaming company League of Legends in collaboration with Riot Games Music Team. Although the name ‘True Damage’ is brand new, the voices behind them are not so much.
Five different artists have gathered to form the virtual hip hop group True Damage. They have been the names from the in-game characters from the MMORPG game League of Legends. The characters on the track are; Akali (Soyeon), Qiyana (Becky G), Ekko (Thutmose and DUCKWRTH) and Senna (Keke Palmer) with Yasuo as the DJ. The song contains vocals in English, Spanish and Korean.
The song was revealed at the 2019 League of Legends Championship Finals in Paris, France.
Rapper Thusmose spoke about his experience in transformed into a digital character in-game for the song; “something I’ve never done before. All I wanted to do was get into acting and this is kind of in that realm.”
The song is about being the giants of this new world being created all around us. The youth are taking over and things will never be the same. And the youth of today have more power than any mythic giant that ever existed. People have access to knowledge today, and with it comes transformation and progress. Watch the animated music video below.
Individual artists who assume the in-game characters also blend the special features of those characters into their verses on the song. Thusmose represents the character of Ekko who is able to bend time. In his lyrics, the rapper sings “Movin’ too fast, have ’em movin’ in slow-mo,” a reference to bending time. In the third verse by DUCKWRTH again representing Ekko, he sings “Mm, I keep on shattering time.” In League of Legends, Ekko is identified as ‘The boy who shattered time.”
Similarly, Becky G portrays the character of Qiyana who wears an elemental ring on her hand with magic powers. In the song, she sings “Spinnin’ this thing, gold on my ring…”