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Rap music is an art form based first-and-foremost on language skills. With more words per song, by far, than any other type of pop music that has ever existed (I think that’s true—it must be, right?), rap gives its practitioners more opportunity for witticism and wordplay than any other lyricists have ever enjoyed. Thus, rappers are oftentimes experts in making puns. (A pun is, as defined by Webster’s, “the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound.”)
This has been reflected throughout the genre’s history by the frequent usage of puns in rap album titles.
Here are 37 notable examples: The Greatest Rap Album Title Puns.
Some of them are very funny. All of them are very punny.
(Sorry about that.)
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De La Soul Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump (2000)
What's Being Punned: Artificial intelligence
De La Soul embrace their repuation as the thinking man's rap trio.
E-40 Tha Hall of Game (1996)
What's Being Punned: The Hall of Fame
Whether you were a spitter it or kicker, way better to be inducted into the Hall of Game, in our opinion. Fame is overrated.
Salt & Pepa A Salt with a Deadly Pepa (1988)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "assault with a deadly weapon"
A truly horrible, but eminently rememberable pun. Kudos, Salt-n-Pepa!
Ice T Rhyme Pays (1987)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "Crime pays"
This one is LITERALLY true!
Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill (1986)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "Licensed to kill"
The Beastie Boys are just like James Bond. Except iller.
Big Daddy Kane Long Live the Kane (1988)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "Long live the king"
God, what a great album.
Bun B Trill OG (2010)
What's Being Punned: Trilogy
"Trill" is a southern slang portmanteau for "true and real." You get the sense that Bun B thought of this pun like ten years ago, and then named his first two solo albums Trill and II Trill just so he could use it for the third.
Curren$y Fast Times At Ridgemont Fly (2008)
What's Being Punned: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Curren$y = rap game Spicoli
The Coup Genocide & Juice (1994)
What's Being Punned: "Gin & Juice"
Oakland political rap trio The Coup played off Snoop Doggy Dog's 1993 party hit to make a more socially conscious point.
Wiz Khalifa Burn After Rolling (2009)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "burn after reading"
One of the first things they teach you in spy school.
Dr. Octagon Dr. Octagonecologyst (1996)
What's Being Punned: Gynecologyst
One of the more ridiculous puns in rap music history. And a perfect encapsulation of Kool Keith's personality. (With the producer Dan the Automator, Kool Keith made up one half of the sci-fi hip-hop duo Dr. Octagon.)
Snoop Dogg The Doggfather (1996)
What's Being Punned: The Godfather
Snoop will not put a severed horse's head in your bed (we hope!)
Eazy-E Eazy-Duz-It (1988)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "Easy does it"
Eazy definitely did it. With a very sizable portion of the women in the greater Los Angeles area, if the stories are to believed.
Gucci Mane The Burrrprint: 3D (The Movie: Part 3) (2009)
What's Being Punned: The Blueprint
Appropriate for a mixtape wherein Gucci repeatedly disses Jay Z, it's a play on Jay's 2001 classic title.
Killah Priest Heavy Mental (1998)
What's Being Punned: Heavy Metal
Wu-Tang affiliate Killa Priest is a serious thinker.
E-40 The Ball Street Journal (2008)
What's Being Punned: The Wall Street Journal
Ball Street, where the Hillside Vallejo Stock Exchange is located.
Snoop Dogg R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece (2004)
What's Being Punned: R&B (Rhythm & Blues)
Rhythm and Blues is a very popular genre of music often shortened to "R&B." Snoop Dogg is a "Gangsta" rapper.
X-Clan To the East, Blackwards (1990)
What's Being Punned: Backwards
How long before we get a Maybach Music Group mixtape called Hustling Blackwards? Not long enough.
Das EFX Straight Up Sewaside (1993)
What's Being Punned: Suicide
Sewaside, it's a sewaside. Das EFX were no doubt trying to capitalize on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mania when they came up from the sewers on 1992's "Straight Out the Sewer." Perhaps Straight Up Sewaside was a De La Soul Is Dead-type maneuver after the Ninja Turtle bubble popped.
Mac Mall Thizziana Stoned and the Temple of Shrooms (2006)
What's Being Punned: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
As any good Urban Dictionary connoisseur knows, "thizzing" is rolling off a bean, "shrooms" are a hallucinogen, and "stoned" is what happens when you get run over by a giant rolling boulder while trying to steal the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol.
Tone Loc Loc-ed After Dark (1989)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "locked after dark."
Los Angelian for "crazy," "Loc'd" derives from the Spanish word "loco" ("crazy"). So Tone Loc is saying he or (the general atmopshere surrounding him, perhaps) gets crazy after dark.
Waka Flocka Flame Luke Skywaka (2012)
What's Being Punned: Luke Skywalker from Star Wars
Flocka, fan of Star Wars. Somebody needs to introduce dude to The Muppet Show tho.
5th Ward Boyz Rated G (1995)
What's Being Punned: The Motion Picture Association of America's "G" rating.
According to the Motion Picture Association of America's website, "A G-rated motion picture contains nothing in theme, language, nudity, sex, violence or other matters that, in the view of the Rating Board, would offend parents whose younger children view the motion picture." So this one is really funny.
Grip Plyaz Purp, Wind & Fire (2012)
What's Being Punned: Earth, Wind & Fire
The weird thing is, "Earth" is also a type of kush, so he could have just kept it "Earth, Wind & Fire."
2Pac 2pacalypse Now (1991)
What's Being Punned: Apocalypse Now
2pac was the stage name of the late rap artist, Tupac Amaru Shakur. Apocalypse Now is an acclaimed 1979 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. So you see...
South Circle Anotha Day Anotha Balla (1995)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "Another day, another dollar"
"Baller" is slang for someone who "balls," meaning "lives a life of partying," having a "ball" all the time. It can also be an adjective, describing a noun that shares the qualities of a "baller" lifestyle.
Cypress Hill Temples Of Boom (1995)
What's Being Punned: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The third Cypress Hill album, named after the second Indiana Jones movie. Much like Indiana Jones star Harrison Ford, Cypress Hill are famous for smoking pot.
Shiest Bubz Everydaze My Birthday (2010)
What's Being Punned: Everyday is
Sheist Bubz likes to smoke pot.
Nas Nastradamus (1999)
What's Being Punned: Nostradamus
Nas, who earned the nickname "The Prophet" as a teenage rap phenom, redubbed himself after the 16th-century French seer famous for his cryptic prohecies. The album wasn't so good, though.
South Central Cartel 'N Gatz We Truss (1994)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "In God we trust"
The South Central Cartel didn't even pretend to enforce a separation of weaponry and state.
Smut Peddlers Porn Again (2001)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "born again"
East Coast rap duo Smut Peddlers were really into porn. In fact, it was practically like a religion to them.
Ludacris Incognegro (1999)
What's Being Punned: The word "incognito"
This is just a terrible pun. And confusing, in that, why would you want to name your first album after a word that refers to keeping one's identity secret. Like, wasn't Ludacris in fact trying to do just the opposite of that?
Public Enemy Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994)
What's Being Punned: The phrase "music and our message"
This is one of the most confounding puns ever used for a rap title. How many times did you have to read it before figure it out? (For me the answer is "a lot of times.")
Naughty By Nature 19 Naughty III (1993)
What's Being Punned: Nineteen ninety three
They clearly must have inspired the nickname for the following decade: the "naughties."
Too $hort Cocktails (1995)
What's Being Punned: Cock tales
This is an album full of songs that tell stories about Too $hort's cock. Get it?
ItsTheReal & DJ Drama Urbane Outfitters (2013)
What's Being Punned: TUrban Outfitters
We got love for It's the Real, but have you seen the way dudes dress? Not exactly "urbane."
Katie Got Bandz Drillary Clinton (2013)
What's Being Punned: Hillary Clinton
Katie Got Bandz is part of Chicago's "Drill Scene." Hillary Clinton is the former Secretary of State. The rest is history. (Sidenote: This wonderful title was suggested by Complex contributor and all-around-good-guy Kyle Kramer, during an interview he was doing with Katie Got Bandz!)
