NEWS: When Celebrities Rap, We Lose

CELEB: When Celebrities Rap, We Lose

Bill Cosby is making a hip-hop album. That was the seemingly insane story months ago and I recall it being mentioned here with some amusement. However, as it turns out, he doesn't actually rap on the album. Ghah! Damn you, music gods! Why must you be so fickle! How dare you tease then not deliver such an atrocious bounty!

Cosby merely produces the album because, in his words:

While Bill rapping as Bill would've been a delightful trainwreck, I sincerely believe Bill rapping as Fat Albert had a twenty-percent shot of being legit good.

This close call caused me to think of other atrocious rap-missteps. Not of the intentional, overly played and unfunny, "rapping granny" variety... but sincere, heartfelt attempts to step into the genre.

Who better to start with than Gwyneth Paltrow? Perhaps the only context so unbelievable as to force you to ask the question, "That Gwyneth Paltrow?" Yes.

Sure, like Bill she doesn't actually rap, and rather, sang the chorus. But on the other hand, she's fuckin' Gwyneth Paltrow! Onstage. With Jay-Z. Making music.

I'll second the "historic" part. When you've got Gwyneth-fucking-Paltrow performing at a Jay-Z concert and she isn't even the least credible person on stage, you've got something epic. Fucking Coldplay guy? Was Michael Buble not around? Why not just a giant vagina statue that sheds tears loudly? They're all around the same spot on the testosterone-meter, right?

Moving down the list... or up? I can't tell which direction we're going. Let's just say, moving along. We find the following offering from Dee Dee Ramone. Is this made worse due to the Ramones' rock dominance? Or worse? Again, who can tell?

At least the prior two had connections to making music (Paltrow sang in a movie) and/or played instruments. The next guy did not. (Please, no jokes about the skin flute.) Yes, it's Ron Jeremy's hip-hop album, titled Unwrapped. He only appears to rap on two tracks, though worry not, the majority of the rest of them appear to be written about his penis and are performed by other rappers. Sort of odd, considering the much documented homophobia of the rap world. Despite looking, I wasn't able to find a sample. However, I'm going to assume after a second or two of him rapping you'll be begging for the now, relatively pleasant sounds of him grunting his way through a money-shot.

Next, we have a guy who plays a "rapper pro-wrestler" character deciding to go one further and make a rap album. His piledriver was more legit and Hillbilly Jim had more street cred, but that didn't stop WWE's John Cena from engaging in the following fake rap battle. Really, don't even bother clicking, it's just gonna ruin your next ten minutes...

Finally, we have the ill-advised rap debut from Axl Rose himself, off of Use Your Illusion II... an album otherwise pretty awesome. Here's a YouTube clip, somehow, made no worse at all by the presence of a generic Internet weirdo singing along.

Looks like we're 0 for five, and likely worse, as I've probably missed many terrible examples of this inane sub-genre. Let this be a warning, and let's let this trend end here.




TheCoolerKing is New York bound

You forgot 'Macho Man' Randy Savage's rap album.

Sometimes it can be awesome too.

Sometimes it can be wierd, too.

Someone needs to find Joe Pesci's "It's da bitches dat'll git ya".

Ron gave me a CD of Unwrapped once, along with some rolling papers stamped with his likeness. I've listened to the CD but now I think it's time it found a new home. Expect it waiting for you on your doorstep upon your return from NY. I might even put a nice bow around it.....

And speaking of Ron, check out his appearance on SG Radio... sorry to say he didn't rap on-air...

i'm actually writing a book about bad music, and have an entire chapter based on celebrity musical endeavors wherein a great many of these are covered. there's just so many, and while none of them have ever been the slightest bit good... they just keep on comin'.

Against my better judgement...I'm going to go ahead and admit that I actually own this album. In my defense...it was given to me as a gag-gift.

Did everybody forget about the Shaq Attack??

None of those even approach the awfulness of Brian Wilson's foray into the hip-hops.

I give you... Smart Girls.

You could combine the Addams Family Rap, Ninja Rap, Funkyman, the Bartman, Hulkster in Heaven, Macho Thang, the Superbowl Shuffle, and Don't Copy that Floppy and not even approach the level of awesome/awful exhibited in Smart Girls.

Oh my freakin' Lord, that was funny.

Cigarette, as much as it hurts, you are right: This is the most awful thing I have ever listened to. And I am a huge Brian Wilson fan.

The Beach Boys samples are totally out of rhythm with the beats... and musically so wrong for this kind of track. And the "Smart Girls" chorus is painful.

"intelligent girls are dynamite!"

Great googly-moogly!

That was pretty hilarious when it came out, now it sounds better than most of what's on mainstream radio.

i'm glad somebody else pointed this out, because it would have pained me to actually have to find the link and listen to it agian.

Actually he had a few singles that had a lot of radio play in L.A. Was even on one of the remixes of Westside Connection's Bow Down.

I miss Shaq Fu.

your the man now dog!

bwhahahahah! I'd forgotten about great googly-moogly, I shall proceed to add it back into my everyday vocabulary.