A couple of weeks ago Jay-Z dropped the music video his track Moonlight on Tidal, and the internet exploded in excitement at its premise — a Friends remake with a stellar all-black cast. Alas — we can’t all afford to fork out on every streaming services on offer (sorry Jay), but thankfully the video has just been released on YouTube for those of us not riding the Tidal wave.
It starts out as a astoundingly identical replica of the original sitcom, except with the all white cast swapped out for the following A+++ roll call:
- Awkward Black Girl‘s Issa Rae in the role of Rachel
- Comedian Lil Rel Howery as Joey
- Actor and rapper Lakeith Stanfield playing Chandler
- The Carmichael Show‘s Jerrod Carmichael taking the lead as Ross (and later, himself)
- Hilarious star of the recent Girls’ Trip Tiffany Haddish as the equally hilarious Phoebe
- Actress and musician Tessa Thompson as Monica.
- Even Jay-Z himself makes a cameo, as Monica’s boyfriend Richard, on the phone (soz Bey)
Then it gets all very meta, with Ross aka Jerrod breaking out of character to ask the always hilarious Hannibal Buress how it is, who as always is very straight up: “garbage.” Fortunately, it’s not — there’s lols and Moonlight beating La La Land references, the actual fountain from Friends and a whole lot more. But we don’t want to spoil it all, because you’ll want to watch it. Which you can do right here.