9 Times Rappers Really Needed a Check

Is your favorite rapper struggling to pay taxes and rent? That probably explains these nine cash-grabs.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Rap is a youngin’s hustle. Superstars are launched in their teens, legends are minted in their twenties, and by age 30, odds are, you’re broke. Scrounging for a supplemental income. Shilling for shampoo brands. Slumming the clumsiest of Eastern Hemisphere pop-rap. All to pay back taxes, legal fees, and the mortgages of however many mansions that you won't own for much longer.

Unfortunately, rappers have a history of letting their troubled finances make for atrocious art, just to get by. Here we've compiled nine egregious instances of rappers on some pay-their-bills shit. This includes ill-advised rap collaboration, cynical endorsement deals, and consumer fraud. In a few sad cases, the desperation is understandable and, thankfully, forgivable—really, Rakim can do no wrong. DMX is long beyond salvation, though. And Juelz? Boy, you know you wrong.

RELATED: The 50 Greatest Rap Commercials
RELATED: Nas Let Us Down With This Awful Australian Rap Song

When Nas Got Kidnapped by Australians

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Year: 2013

'Twas a gold coastal dawn over Sydney, Australia, when a band of tattooed men wearing snapbacks and their swaggiest tees kidnapped beloved American rapper Nas, holding him hostage atop a warehouse and forcing him to rap for his life.

That's what this looks like, yes? Bliss n Eso's "I Am Somebody" presents Nas in (what looks like) a neck brace spitting the sort of arena-inspirational rap that you'd resent sufficiently enough were it coming from Macklemore or will.i.am—but Nas? SMH. They owe you, bruh.

When Lauryn Hill Rapped Over Manic Electronica Bloops

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Year: 2013

Lauryn Hill's been struggling for funds since the ink was still wet on my student loan contract. Neither she nor I have weathered this decade too profitably. When Lauryn inked a new $1 million deal with Sony last year, little did we know that her new contract demands would require her to release the most confused, confusing music of her career. Behold "Neurotic Society," which sounds as electroshock-minded as its title suggests.

When Beanie Sigel Made One Album In Two Weeks

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Year: 2012

Unlike Ms. Hill, Beanie Sigel did indeed manage to record the entirety of a feature-length project between sentencing and transport to the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. A two-week recording session resulting in a convoluted intro that's apparently sung by Matt Stone and Trey Parker in the spirit of Team America, and then ten new Sigel tracks that you will never want nor need to hear.

Granted, there are several examples of musicians recording their best and/or most innovative material in record speed, such as Jay Z's Blueprint or Kanye's Yeezus, but This Time is impersonal, marginally interesting, and a skid-marked erasure of Beanie Sigel's best qualities as a voice and storyteller.

When Memphis Bleek Hyped Women's Hair Care Products

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Year: 2010

Rappers have committed sins of corporate brand advertising since Run D.M.C. hyped Adidas in '86. Cube sold malt liquor. MC Hammer downgraded from platinum to Cash4Gold. The worst such spectacle is Memphis Bleek's promo rap for Garnier Fructis, a spectacularl betrayal of the Roc-A-Fella brand and misapplication of Bleek's talent. Homeboy stands and nods helpless as four women harmonize about their "flow."

The ad lasts four minutes. The failure is forever.

When DMX Sang Like a Critically Wounded Teddy Pendergrass

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Year: 2013

Double struggle, toil, and trouble. Rakim and DMX, the god and the dog, teamed up to define "travesty" with a title and hook ripped from the O'Jays greatest hits. Rakim keeps pulling this shit, unfortunately. And once again I'm wishing that Eminem would launch an intervention for DMX at this point, to preserve the man's reputation if not his sanity.

When Ma$e Overstayed His "Welcome"

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Year: 2004

Ma$e has launched more failed comeback attempts than any other rapper, or really any other entertainment entity that isn't Joss Whedon's Firefly. In 2004, Betha left his pulpit in Atlanta to drop a sterile third album that only makes sense as the antithesis of everything that "Bad Boy" could possibly stand for.

"First of all, you ain't no reverend and rapping. Don't tell me that God loves hip-hop to the point that you can rap, too. I don't wanna hear it." Not that Murda Ma$e is much of a preacher either.

When Juelz Santana Started Scheming Via PayPal

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Year: 2014

Say you're running a pyramid scheme. Say your immediate goal is to get media and skeptical consumers to stop referring to your enterprise as a pyramid scheme. Of course you call Juelz Santana, a.k.a. "Mr. Wooooooo-ooooooo-oooooo" (see below). You call up Juelz and, in fact, this very moment, he's sitting at his (or someone's) kitchen table recording an endorsement of your get-exponentially-richer "enterprise."

Famous last words: "If you need more information, you can just hit me up on my email, BossUpWithJuelz@gmail.com."

When Ja Rule Was Born Again (and Paid Up Front)

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Year: 2013

Here's a divine case. Ja Rule, fresh from a 120-day prison sentence for tax evasion, signed onto California youth pastor Galley Molina's script for a faith-based film produced by his own studio, something of a downgrade for Ja considering his past film cameo bankability in The Fast and the Furious. And while Church Girl is only appropriately hokey, sentimental, and faithfully rote, Ja's involvement is strange considering that, by his own admission, he wasn't much of an evangelical before the film crew started shooting. Money talks. Jesus walks.

When Pras Was Under Cover

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Year: 2006

False alarm, suckers!

A couple years ago, Fugees sideliner Pras Michele sat down for Chappelle's Show co-creator Neal Brennan's podcast to talk Lauryn-Wyclef gossip, his zany extraction from Somalia in 2009, and old rumors that he was homeless in Los Angeles. For nine days in 2006, Pras posed among the homeless population of Los Angeles as part of his documentary project Skid Row, which debuted a year later to much critical acclaim.

Nearly a decade after the Fugees' last hurrah, Pras Michele is a film producer and respected activist. It's heartening to salute an MC who planned for life after rap.

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