Comedian and Grammy presenter Randy Rainbow has heard all the Valhalla jokes. “Yes, I totally had a Travolta/Adel Dazeem moment,” he says in an apology tweet today.
Presenting the first-ever Grammy for video game music during the pre-show Premiere Ceremony, co-host Rainbow mangled the pronunciation of the winner “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla,” saying something like “Assassin’s….Creed Valaha.” In a tweet titled “With sincerest apologies to Assassin’s Creed VALHALLA,” Rainbow, who was nominated in the Best Comedy Album category, explains, “It was the second category of the show, I was still finding my footing and don’t know video games.
And of the many phonetic spellings I had to contend with as host, that one wasn’t included so I just started speaking in tongues.” The award was presented during the Sunday afternoon ceremony to composer Stephanie Economou for her music in Ubisoft’s video game “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok,” a billion-dollar-plus money maker.
The Grammy is just the latest plaudit for Economou, who last year won the Society of Composers & Lyricists award for emerging talent for her work on Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy.