Elon Musk joins Soundcloud rapper community, releases tribute to late gorilla Harambe

It might be worth stating that this isn't an April Fool's joke: on Saturday evening, tech entrepreneur / space adventurer / aid worker-critic Elon Musk released a rap song on Soundcloud.

Called RIP Harambe, the heavily autotuned number was something of a paean to Harambe, the Western lowland gorilla that, two years ago, was shot to death in Cincinnati Zoo after grabbing and dragging a boy, endangering his life.

Musk announced the track to his 25.5 million Twitter followers, posting an apparent album cover for the song and the words "Emo G Records", which is his ficticious record label, later posting: "I’m disappointed that my record label failed".

The lyrics to RIP Harambe are unlikely to worry the hip-hop establishment; it's also not clear if that is Musk's voice lurking beneath the autotune. Either way, the song mostly consists of declarations such as: “RIP Harambe/Sipping on some Bombay/We on our way to heaven/Amen, Amen.”

“RIP Harambe/Smoking on some strong/In the gorilla zoo/And we thinking about you.”

Musk seems to be in on the joke, posting a link to Rolling Stone's coverage on his Twitter account with the words: "Making The Onion articles real…", referring to the popular US satirical news website.