allthe 50 best raps in TV and movies
By Insanul Ahmed, Ernest Baker, Jack Erwin, Brendan Frederick, Dominic Green, Donnie Kwak, Justin Monroe, Peter Rubin, Damien Scott, Dimas Sanfiorenzo
Poochie the Dog
After Rastafying Poochie by about 15%, the minds behind Itchy and Scratchy decided to let him spit a couple bars that were totally, extremely in our face. Sure, Comic Book Guy called it the, "Worst...episode...ever." But to us, Poochie should have been bigger than curly fries because we loved him more than that one kid loved the Speedo Guy. Also, this knob tastes funny.
Euripides a.k.a. Dead Mike
CB4 didn't just take aim at fraudulent gangster rappers from the early '90s, there were also a fair proportion of shots given to afrocentrist ones (X-Clan immediately comes to mind). Rhyming with a hilariously brilliant deadpan delivery, Euripides Smalls needs just three syllables to get his point across: "I'm black y'all." Watching the second best rapping moment of the movie (oh yeah, there's another on the list) makes us ponder the question: If Chris Rock felt the need to make this movie while rappers were actually making classic shit, what the fuck is he waiting for now?
Hannah Montana
Let it not be said that Miley Cyrus doesn't have a little rhythm. In fact, if Hannah Montana were a real-life person, we'd imagine her to be the type of trifey teen that uploads videos of herself doing the stanky leg in a wife beater and pink Juicy sweats...and is real popular with the football team. Miley's 18, right? We can say that.
Ghostface
Who knew a serial masked murder could spit? Granted it was about fuckin' goats and turning foreskin into winter coats (seriously?) but you have to appreciate a good cipher when you see one. Compared to the white guy and Marlon Wayans, Ghostface killed everyone...get it? His rhymes plus the swinging of the blade and...nevermind.
Senator Jay Bullington Bulworth
Rapping effectively is 90% confidence, and Warren Beatty is such a G that he pretty much pulls it off. Shit, it ain't that much worse than Pras.
Alpha Chino
It's a well known fact that most rappers are lying their ass off (we see you Officer Ricky!) and that product placement is the true fifth element of hip-hop. "Booty, Sweat, and Tears" is yet another example of a lot of truth being said in jest, especially when you consider that A.C. is a gay rapper. So it's pretty much the perfect way to open a film like Tropic Thunder.
Flip Dog
Ahh, our boy Flip Dog, from Whiteboyz, one
of the most criminally slept on wigger stories of all time. The boy was brave.
He wasn’t afraid to drop the N-word, wanted to be looked at as black kid in
Iowa, and if a “sucka mc” tried to test him he would “put a bullet in yo ass”
with his “fucking Uzi.” This, of course, was before Flip Dog and his crew took
a trip to the Cabrini–Green housing projects in Chicago, where things turned out...well,
not so good. However, we’ll always have this moment to remember our Dog.
Ashley Banks
Given how low we set the bar for child rappers (and how many of them fail to even reach that), we're far from mad at Ashley's dinner table rap. Plus, rap is all about attitude, and busting out bars during grace, in the face of some tight white folks, is pretty badass.
Hot Coco
Wanna watch something that's over-the-top politically correct? How about the episode of Nip/Tuck where Candy (Jennifer Coolidge) learns about her African-American heritage, changes her name to "Coco," and releases a rap CD—but not before she gets plastic surgery for an authentic black woman ass. That's not racist at all!
Milton "Goo" Berry
You had to kind of assume that a character
nicknamed "Goo" would at some point spit a rap verse. Luckily, Milton
""Goo"" Berry only partially embarrassed himself when he
pretended to rap in a make-believe commercial for "Goo Punch."
Despite the Shock G-meets-Faison Love look, Goo had the proper rap mannerisms,
video girls, and a song with lyrics that could interpreted as him splashing off
of numerous women. #Win.
New Human Formantics
Want to know what an underrated movie looks like? Queue up Fear of a Black Hat, a flick that truly has not gotten the respect it deserves over the years. In this clip, our man Tone Def (the original member of the Native Tongues—fuck what De La Soul says) goes solo on some P.M. Dawn shit, and we all learn an important lesson from him: Skin color doesn't matter because we all piss and fart the same. Touching.
Sgt. Joe Friday (Dan Aykroyd) & Det. Pep Streebek (Tom Hanks)
We’re not sure if they were trying to get a younger audience—or a blacker one—to come to movies but, for some reason, the producers of Dragnet thought it was a good idea to attach some kind of rap song, with Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd rhyming in character. The definition of a terrible idea. This song is just ass, man. This is how clueless these people were: They thought it was a good idea to have cops rap about STOPPING crime. C'mon, man, even Officer Ricky knew better than that.
Ryan
You remember this blockbuster movie about a few nerds hiring Owen Wilson as a bodyguard to protect them from bullies, right? Of course you don't, because this movie was a huge failure. The only bright spot—or should we low light, extremely dim spot—of the flick was when the chubby dweeb decides to rap battle his nemesis. A few off-beat lyrics later and you are left feeling uncomfortable, which is what rap is supposed to make you feel.
Nanny Fran
Fran tries to impress the fictional female rock star, Tasha, with her rhymes. It doesn't work, but we give her points for incorporating an on-beat laugh into her performance. Sidebar: Tasha is HOT.
Cool Crush Ice Killa
It must be written in every movie contract that if Terry Crews is in the film, he has to dance. There is no escaping this man from hitting the robot or some tired 80's pop lock move, but the shit is funny. It's magnified to the tenth degree in this film when he is given the green light to spit a few awful bars and can only flow words together that end in "illa." Lets just hope he doesn't get any bright ideas and think he can actually rap 'cause he is no J Dilla! *Terry Crews voice*
George
After 8 Mile, there were a million spoofs
of the infamous final battle scene where Rabbit spits against Papa Doc. So what
makes this scene from Scary Movie 3 stand out from the rest? That's
our boy Simon Rex ripping the mic in the days before we knew him as Dirt Nasty.
White Hollywood actors who start semi-serious rap careers >>>
anything.
Brak and Prime Cut Miggity-Mo' Macdaddy Gizzabang Doggy Dog Dog
Wait, was this the last time we’ve actually heard
Cee-Lo spit? We think so, baby! Hearing the husky rapper, who provides the
voice for Prime Cut Miggity-Mo' Macdaddy Gizzabang Doggy Dog Dog, going back to
his Goodie Mob days is what makes this rap scene so memorable. Because,
honestly, we would have to be high out of our mind to understand what else is
going on here, and, you know, we’re at work, so...
Zack and Cody
Sheesh, what did hip-hop do to deserve this shit? You know Disney, you don’t see Nas putting Mickey Mouse in his video or Lil Wayne doing duets with fucking Donald Duck. Please refrain from having your little minions constantly destroy the culture. Thanks in advance.
Kahill, LaShawn, Pee Wee
Right around the time Ice Cube was "Jackin' for Beats," Khalil, LaShawn, and Pee Wee were jackin' Cube for some of his old shit in the hood classic Bebe's Kids. This is actually a really awesome cover of N.W.A.'s "Straight Out of Compton," with our little man Pee Wee—who is "three years old and still drinking Similac" and if you slap him he'll "slap you back, punk!"—having the standout verse.
Darkwing Duck
Sure, it's hip-house. But the worst part about this funkdafied promo for the Disney afternoon cartoon is that they jacked a Vanilla Ice line from "Ninja Rap" only months after The Secret of the Ooze was released. GO DARKWING, GO DARKWING, GO! Fun fact: Fergie is one of the background dancers. Legitimizing or not? Hmmmm.
Urkel
The Superman, the Dougie, the Stanky Leg—all
those dances owe their existence to Steve Quincy Urkel. The '90s catch-phrase
king shut the party down when, sans mic but with suspenders and high waters, he
started rapping an instructional dance song. "Did I do that?" Yes, Steve, you just started the mother-effin' party. You're still not getting any P, though.
Tom Green and Xzibit
It's almost not even fair comparing Tom Green to other amateur celebrity rappers. Despite being best known for "The Bum Bum Song" and almost eating a mouse in Road Trip, Canadian rap fans first heard him in the early ’90s as MC Bones in the short-lived rap group Organized Rhyme. In fact, by the time he filmed this imprompu freestyle session with Mr. X to the Z, he had already released two solo rap albums. He gets props for actually coming off the dome, not so much for still sounding like a Beastie Boy reject.
Kel
"Who loves Orange soda? Kel loves orange soda. Is it truuue? Oh yes, it's true. I do, I do, I doooo." One of Nickelodeon's most annoying tendencies is to beat, strangle, and burn a joke to death, a factor that was not spared for Kenan & Kel. This little running line was probably said in all 62 episodes of the show. (To be fair, if the show would have kept going, the joke would have eventually been axed after Kel gets three of his toes removed due to diabetes.) Hey, at least we were able to get this actually decent Kel rap out of the gag.
Dick and Harry
Apparently rapping and choreography still go hand-in-hand on the Solomons' home planet. Word on the street is The Big Giant Head rocks out to Whodini and does excellent head spins. Pause?
Theo and Roach
Well, now we know why Bill Cosby hates rap. Seriously, we see dude tappin' along to the beat, but you just know he's gotta be thinking, "The fuck is this shit?!?" Malcolm Jamal Warner went on to have a career as a "performance poet," which, given his antipathy toward the beat in this clip, seems only fitting.
Uncle Jesse
First of all, Uncle Jesse (actor John Stamos, a.k.a. Rebecca Romijn’s ex-bitch) was actually a real musician. He knew how to play multiple instruments, sung live on Broadway, and performed multiple times with the Beach Boys. With all that being said, Uncle Jesse’s musical talents didn’t extend to hip-hop. He was a pretty shitty rapper even by shitty rapper standards. His performance in this scene was so terrible that the Beach Boys put sand in his thong and have him a wedgie. At least that's what we like to think resulted from this hilarious mess.
Mario and Luigi
Years before Smif-N-Wessun would make a painful attempt at sampling Super Smash Bros. music with the indefensible "Super Brooklyn" record, the short lived cartoon Super Mario Bros. Super Show! gave the idea a go. There's not much remembered of the show, the exception being this intro which featured two seemingly broke, out of work, and probably deliriously hungry actors dressed up as the Mario Brothers, rapping and wobbling in front of a cartoon back drop. Really folks, it doesn't get sadder (or more entertaining) than this shit.
Caitlin
Chuck D would be so proud of young Caitlin Ryan—or Yung Katalyzt, as she was (probably) known around campus. When she couldn't get her environmental message out through Degrassi Junior High's newspaper, she grabbed a hype man and took her fight directly to the people with a sick 16. And by "sick," we mean fucking anemic. No charisma, simplistic rhymes, and a Canadian accent. Stop the stink indeed! She should have had Drake, er, Jimmy ghostwrite her verse. Also, we love how the black girl was the first person to sign the petition. Real subtle, Degrassi!
Jay and Silent Bob
So what if dude only says about five different words during the whole rap? As any rap aficionado knows, it's how you say those five words that matters—Jay-Z could rap the phone book and it would sound great. Now we're not saying Jason Mewes is on Hov's level...Memphis Bleek though? That's another story.
Porkchop and Dr. D
"Scratching in the sunshine/Diggin' in the dirt/Begging for a doggy treat/'Get off the furniture!'" Not the best, but not the worst, and enough to put Porkchop in the Dog Rap pantheon (after Snoop and DMX but ahead of Bow Wow).
Homer Simpson
Thankfully, Mr. Plow rocks the backwards fitted for less than 20 seconds because he definitely doesn't rock the mic. He quickly gets shut down by Bart and Lisa but not before making Snowball II screech in terror and making us wanna give away all our business to the Plow King. And to think, this guy once wrote a hit song and won a Grammy.
Ice Cold
You know, you would think that rappers would have dedicated a song to George Washington Carver's best friend long before Ice Cold did it in Fear of a Black Hat. But nope, this was the first. It amazes us that we had songs about "Milky Cereal" and "Ham 'N' Eggs" before we had a legitimate peanut anthem. What a fucking joke.
Dr. Evil
Dr. Evil—who has tried to rule the world over and over again, making him, literally, the most gangster rapper of all time—puts his own spin on the "Hard Knock Life" beat in the Austin Powers sequel. Not only does Dr. Evil go in on the Jay-Z classic, but he also has a Hype Williams style video, which includes gaudy gold chains, durags, jerseys, some booty-shaking woman, and an abundance of swag.
Ren & Ten, a.k.a. The Hip-Hop Dalmatians
It's pretty startling that, in 2002, this song was looked at as an over-the-top but ultimately unrealistic look at the kind of songs that Suits at record labels were interested in pushing. But holy shit, how unfunny has this become, considering that the last couple of years have given us Riskay's "Smell Yo Dick" and Ray J's "Snakes in the Grass."
Cleveland Jr and Kenny West
Kanye West doesn't give his cosign to everything, but when he does, he's not stingy with his love. West guest starred on The Cleveland Show twice in 2010, appearing both times as Kenny West, an up-and-coming rapper. In both episodes, West blessed us with original music and rhymes. In this clip, Kenny battles little Cleveland Jr. in a very Kanye fashion, wearing an "808 & Heartbreak" style purple suit and the Air Yeezys, while doing some Auto-Tune crooning in the end. It should be number one, fam!
Rhett
So who won this spirited freestyle battle? Here's a hint: It ain't the dude who shamelessly swag-jacked Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura steez and has shakier dance steps than Michael J. Fox. Nope, the clear winner is Teen Witch's BFF, who not only sons homie on the rap tip, but also Harlem Shakes right in his befuddled grill. Top that, Ace. Etherous.
Leprechaun
So where do you go if you're a leprechaun who has traveled to North Dakota, New York City, Vegas, and fucking outer space? You go to the hood. Duh! In one of the more offensive movies you will ever see, Leprechaun kills, jive talks, and, eventually, as you see in the clip above, rhymes his way through the mean streets of Compton. Seriously, where were Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? People should have been marching against this shit. Adding insult to injury was the fact they made a sequel, Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (which is the Empire Strikes Back of stereotypical, straight-to-video movies about leprechauns and "the hood").
Bret and Jemaine
So, you’re about to get mugged; how do you get out of it? You start a rap battle in the middle of the streets, of course. New Zealand doesn’t have a rich history with hip-hop (we’re drawing a blank here) but Bret, a.k.a. Rhymenocerous, and Jemaine, a.k.a. Hiphopopotamus, using rap, quite decently, we might add, to get away from some muggers, instantly makes this duo the greatest spitters of their faraway land.
Bud Bundy
In an era where there was an abundance of white rappers who were genuinely wack, our man Bud Bundy (a.k.a. Grandmaster B) was decent, man. He had flow and he dressed the part. And, more importantly, he had the tragic back story: He came up hard in the mean streets of suburban Chicago, where he lived in a basement, struggled to eat every day, and was constantly doubted and slighted by everyone, including his family. Unfortunately, there was no Eminem-style fairy tale ending for Grandmaster B. Eh, maybe it was the name.
B-Rad
Oh. No. He. Didn't. Of all the things white rappers can do, rhyming "Swiss" with "bleach" is easily the most offensive. Yes, it's a parody, and yes, it gave a lot of black actors jobs. But still, shit is not right. Somewhere Brian Austin Green is saying, "At least I ain't that dude."
Abed and Troy
One of the most tremendously dope features of Community is
the end sequences where Abed and Troy get their 40 seconds to shine while the
credits role. In this clip, the duo create a rap called "La
Biblioteca" to help them study for their 100 level Spanish class. Like
Seriously, these 38 seconds >>>> the entire reggaeton era.
Gangstalicious
Only The Boondocks could make one of hip-hop's most cherished rules, homies over hoes, look completely ridiculous. No one is spared in this clip, from BET host Terrance's annoying ass to the now infamous "Pop Champagne" video (which is now a more infamous gif). If you think about it: After this episode there hasn't been that many "crew love" or "I love you, dog" kind of records, which shows that the cartoon truly does have an impact. Weed carriers, you can officially start to panic now.
Michael and Dwight
There have been many rappers to come out of the Keystone State; however, curiously, none have ever repped the Scranton area—until Michael and Dwight gave their working-class city some love. In what is easily The Office’s most hip-hop moment, Michael and Dwight go all out in their video, even wearing skullys and rocking chains. In fact, even though this is their only known rap song, this record alone makes them at least the fourth and fifth most relevant Pennsylvania rappers, right behind Wiz Khalifa, Freeway, and Beanie Sigel, and miles ahead of Vinnie Paz.
Krazee Eyez Killa
Who knew that Larry "fuckin" David had such a way with words and shit (and, no, we're not talking about the quiet n word bomb he dropped, ether). For him to suggest that Krazy Eyez Killa replace "Muthafucka" with "Bitch" at the end of "I'm comin' for you" was just plain brilliant. A true poet.
Sir Smoke A Lot
The sad part is, this hardly qualifies as a rap verse, and should really be considered the unhinged rantings of a cat with more money than sense who just wanted to get in the rap game. The sadder part is, a Samson x Wiz Khalifa mixtape would do numbers. Especially the "DOCTASAYSINEEDABACKEOTOMY!" skit.
Brennan and Dale
CHECK! CHECK! CHECK CHECK CHECK! All we have to say about this is, "We sail around the world and go port to port/every time I come, I produce a quart." Character Rap Fun Fact #17: This is not actually the first business presentation to employ that exact couplet. That distinction actually belongs to the AOL-Time Warner merger. Shame on you, Gerald Levin!
David Silver
While we've never been lucky enough to know Brian Austin Green personally, we have to imagine that his days on the 90210 set were largely spent trying to convince producers to let his character show how "down for the cause" he was. Which of course translated into his "black friend" "bumrushing" the "system" so he could "flex" his "reedy-voiced tryhard stylee." We don't know what's better about this: the Dungeon Master on guitar, the black friend giving Ian Ziering the most uncomfortable dap ever, Silver's heartfelt Beverly Hills grafted devil plea for brothers to stop killing each other, or the fact that the rhyme scheme is ripped wholesale from his networkmate Bud Bundy's abortion of an IRL rap career. Any way you slice it, this is COMEDY GOLD.
Theo and Roach
We are on to you Mr. PHD having Bill Cosby—we know when we're being force-fed educational shit, and we don't like it! Ah, who are we kidding? We're a sucker for Roach's beat-boxing and Theo's rhyming, even if it is about something as lame as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. However, be warned, Cosby, we don't want nothin' to do with Plato.
The Nerds
You know what would be freaking awesome? If Lewis and Gilbert blew the dust off their beat machines, got the gang back together (yes, Michael Jackson and Elvis impersonators included), and did a 24-year anniversary spaced out VMA performance. They’re already bringing Tron back, you telling us somebody can’t make this happen? Sigh, we can only dream.
CB4
The original. The classic. The best. Watch this clip right now and tell us this wouldn’t make a credible rap song in 2010. Come on, we dare you. You can’t. You going to tell us you can’t see Kanye singing “Sweat From My Balls”? Or how about Ross rapping: “When I'm with my homies, we're rollin; can't love a car unless it's stolen”? And how about the whole performing behind a prison set gimmick? Muthafucking genius, man. Nothing else is even coming close to being number one.