Finally, a ‘Shooting Stars’ meme reference that isn’t ripping Bag Raiders off

In what could possibly be the most meme-heavy music video of all time, Katy Perry has today dropped the film clip for her long-awaited, and much-rumoured, Taylor Swift diss track, ‘Swish Swish’.

In addition to the film clip being an absolutely wild ride of off-the-wall humour, visual effects, celebrity cameos, and meme references, the clip also features a sample from an unlikely Aussie DJ duo.

‘Swish Swish’ was originally released back in May from Katy Perry’s record Witness. Featuring guest vocals from Nicki Minaj, the track has long been rumoured to be a diss track, focused towards Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’, of which Perry is suspected to be the subject.

While the video is full of cameos from celebrities from celebrities such as Terry Crews, Molly Shannon, and Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, it doesn’t feature any references to Taylor Swift, which, to Perry’s credit, is pretty honourable. But what the clip does feature, is a reference to none other than Sydney’s Bag Raiders.

Yes indeed, see, ‘Swish Swish’ happens to reference the famous ‘Shooting Stars’ meme, which has gone completely viral in the last year. The meme generally involves a subject who has been visually manipulated to be falling against a background with a ‘synthwave’ aesthetic while Bag Raiders’ ‘Shooting Stars’ plays in the background, and that’s exactly what Katy Perry’s video employs.

About two minutes and ten seconds into the video, Katy Perry is seen falling while shooting a basketball, which instantly sees the clip diverge into meme territory, taking a short break to play ‘Shooting Stars’ while Perry pays homage to the meme. It’s strange, it’s weird, but it’s oh-so satisfying for lovers of Aussie music (oh, and memes).

While we’ve got no idea about how Bag Raiders feel about their inclusion in the clip yet, it should result in some pretty serious royalties for the duo. The fact the video is hosted on YouTube – which gives artists the option to monetise their clips – is a clear indication Bag Raiders will be remunerated.

YouTube pays 0.00069 to rights holders per stream. This is actually shocking considering Apple pays 0.00735 per stream and Spotify pays 0.00437 (according to Trichordist) – but at least it’s something.

More likely though, Katy Perry’s team would have inked a licensing deal with Bag Raiders to sample the track.

As for the many, many meme videos existing on Facebook, the social giant has benefited from the content, whether directly or indirectly, without paying a cent for it. You can read more about that here.

Currently, the clip has clocked over 7.3 million views in under 24 hours.

Check out Katy Perry’s ‘Swish Swish’ clip below.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.