Image via Complex Original
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We all know how it works by now: rappers want to be athletes and athletes want to be rappers. There's something about the intersection of culture between ballers and spitters that not only makes both groups envious of one another, but convinces each side that they can adequately perform at a high level on the other. Have the ability to write a hot 16 and a catchy hook? Who's to say you can't drop 16 off the bench on the Wizards? Have a 40-inch vertical and a killer midrange game? Who's to say you can't make it rapping like a PG-rated Canibus over Tyra Banks vocals?
Sure, for their sake most athletes should stick to rapping in the shower or any other area totally devoid of audio recording equipment, but the same can't be said for them all. Some of them actually got bars. And while the latter part of this list is riddled with physically-gifted humans who should stay as far away from open mics as possible, the first few actually give us hope that being an athlete-rapper won't always end in embarrassment. Anything is possible, right? These are The Most Notable Athlete-Rappers From Best to Worst.
2.Shaquille O'Neal
Key Track: Biological Didn't Bother
Key Lyric: "Guess what he accepted, responsibility he never left it/ He kept it, he kept it he took me from a boy to a man/ So Phil is my father, 'cause my biological didn't bother"
Shaq is the GOAT of athlete-rappers for a few reasons that go beyond his lyrics. He got in early on the athlete-rapper trend so he was a pioneer, he was never scared of going off the dome ("Tell me how my ass tastes"), and spoke about personal issues like his relationship with his father instead of just money and girls. Diesel Time deserves credit for his work on the mic. Now his movie work on the other hand...
3.Iman Shumpert
Key Track: Chi-Raq Freestyle
Key Lyric: "Boy my Sway up, Celeb hoes get a layup/ They like that I could bust it and stay up/ Have shorty ass cussing like a sailor"
Iman Shumpert on the beat is everything he was supposed to be on the court during the 2013-14 season. Can you imagine Knicks fans when they heard of Shumpert artistic endeavors? If he can't do his job—what he gets paid to do—then how the hell are dudes supposed to take him seriously as a rapper? The answer is, well, just press play and give him a shot.
The point guard can't just rhyme, but there's also a charm to him when he verbally flosses. You can even compare him to Childish Gambino with his awkward confidence and easy-to-listen fluidity. Plus, Shumpert has a pretty good ear for beats. Not "good ear" for an athlete, but "good ear" as in, "Ay yo, Nas. Consult this dude." On 2wo 1ne, his lyrics don't always stick but his sampling choices from the good of traditionalist boom-bap and MMG floss makes the project a surprisingly fresh one. Plus, he samples "Things Done Changed." Why the hell people always sleep on "Things Done Changed?"
That and his loosies like the "Knicks Theme" and the "Chi-Raq" freestyle show that Shumpert should be good if he finds himself in free agency. Can you picture Knicks fans hiding their enjoyment of Shumpert's tracks with a sulk from the season's disappointment—like a kid who gotta settle for grilled cheese because his mom won't get him a Happy Meal?
4.Damian Lillard
Key Track: Hawaii Beach Freestyle
Key Lyric: "Couple old friends jealous heard it through the grapevine/ Was bound to be the prince, and I ain't Will Smith or Tayshaun/"
Dame Lillard is better known for #4barfridays than for 16-bar verses and full songs, but that doesn't mean he isn't the best active athlete-rapper in the game. His four bars go harder than a lot of full-time rappers' songs. Even if the closest thing to a song we get is a battle against a girl on the beach, the Oakland point guard/emcee is highly ranked.
5.Adrien Broner
Key Track: Versace Freestyle
Key Lyric: "Last night I turned down a threesome but I had a foursome instead/ [describes explicit fornication methods]"
Adrien Broner is the type of guy you just say is, "Iight," not to hate, but because you're not trying to hear him talk shit about how nice he is even though you've just complimented him. Peep his "Versace" freestyle for example. He adapts to Migos' flow well for a relative newcomer, but he's essentially talking about how much better his life is then yours. Rick Ross does the same thing, yet we scream the lyrics to "Stay Schemin'" at random strangers in the club with bliss. But you get the feeling he's just entertaining; Rick Ross cares for today's social issues ya'll! With Adrien Broner? Look at his eyes, man.
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Look at his heart, fam.
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He definitely isn't playing about taking your girl with no remorse.
9.Stephen Jackson
Key Track: America Da Beautiful
Key Lyric: "Cotton-pickers running up that hardwood/ While master overlooking like it's all good/"
If this list was created more than a week ago the track and lyric would've been different, but "America Da Beautiful" (feat. Scarface) is impossible to ignore. Dropping MLK's name, dissing famed racist Donald Sterling, using imagery that's far more thought-provoking than the lyrics in the song...it's a tour de force of athlete-rapper possibilities. Stak5 isn't the greatest (or necessarily even great), but he's pretty good for a former NBA player.
10.Lou Williams
Key Track: Imma Boss Freestyle
Key Lyric: "I made my first million before I ever got laid / I was only seventeen ain't that some shit now look at me, look at me"
Lou Williams is another example of how you lose your indoor voice if you spend a certain amount of time in Philadelphia. The guard also has a bit of Meek Mill's charisma and enunciated flow in addition to the volume. But perhaps the main reason why he's so high on this list because he told one of the realest come-up stories ever on "I Want It All": "I understood the SATs, yeah, OK, but/ What about these million dollars?" It's real because it wasn't too long ago when cats were studying for the SATs while barely affording a $5 footlong on a daily basis. Now we out here.
On a side note, that can't be Meek Mill on the autotune, can it?
11.Metta World Peace
Key Track: Champions
Key Lyric: "I'm so Cassius Clay, I'm Tyson in his prime/ You Little League with it, I'm Barry Bonds with mine/"
One of the most complicated human beings to ever set foot on an NBA floor is one of the hardest to judge musically. Is he good? Is he bad? Maybe he's actually a genius and the rest of us are just too stupid to realize it. Whatever the truth may be, Ron Artest/Metta World Peace/The Panda's Friend still has to be up here as one of the greatest athlete-rappers to do it.
12.Delonte West
Key Track: KFC Freestyle
Key Lyric: "Some days I do Chipotle/ She said, 'Chipotle?' Yup, baby girl Chipotle"
Isn't it irritating to hear someone who can rhyme sound like they're just rapping just to rap? Enter Delonte West, a semi-likeable guy on the record with a poor ear for beats and word vomit for lyrics. Check out this gem from that unreleased The Lockout album: "If you swish a swisher, you got that swisher swag." Serious, dude? THIS AIN'T CULTURE. How backwards is it to come up with better bars in a KFC drive-thru?
13.Troy Hudson
Key Track: Obama Did It
Key Lyric: "We just begun though, we not far from the noose around a son's throat/ In that penitentiary cell why sons go?/"
T-Hud gives us another example of athlete-rappers getting too political and thought-provoking with their song ideas, but you gotta give the former NBA player credit for his ambition. "Obama Did It" is definitely one of those joints that made a lot more sense after 2008 than it does in 2014, but we're not holding that against him. Who cares if Guantanimo is still open, racism is still rampant, and Wall St. still does whatever it wants?
14.DeSean Jackson
Key Track: Pound Cake Freestyle
Key Lyric: "Nights I stayed up to dream slow/ Paint a perfect picture with no rain or snow"
Whether it's because of the silly name or because of how the website is stuck in 2004, Jaccpot Records (Jackson's record label) hasn't popped despite grabbing a feature from the "Rack City" fellow. Jackson's verses hasn't been getting much shine either. It's not that he's a wack rhymer, but he's pretty boring. Nothing really stands out other than that he's DeSean Jackson. Plus, his production choices sound like they belong on those mixtape CDs the hustlers/struggle rappers try to get you for over at Time Square—and that's possibly because Jackson can relate. The wide receiver had Snoop Dogg hop on a track last year, but his presence doesn't hold much weight these days.
15.Chris Webber
Key Track: Gangsta, Gangsta (How U Do It)
Key Lyric: "Lived with many hoes but never been turned out/ Niggas think they can fuck with me? Must be sherm'd out/"
You have to at least chuckle at C-Webb's cover for this album "2 Much Drama". Such a serious image for an album that meant so little to so many people. Webber today is one of our favorite NBA talking heads, but back in the 90's heads must've been talking about how he managed to ruin a video with Kurupt, multiple celebrity appearances, and "Fly Girl"-style dancers. It was probably that leather baseball jersey's fault.
16.Marquis Daniels
Key Track: Kome here Nikki
Key Lyric: "Cellphone jumpin', bad bitch with me/ What's up girl? Kome Here Nikki"
So you Google "Come here Nikki" (never mind why; we're being hypothetical here) and you find Daniels song come up. Then, you find out that "Kome" isn't a typo; a grown man made the decision to title his track like this. If you immediately hit the Back button, that's pretty understandable. If your curiosity got the best of you and you clicked that, we're so sorry for you. "Kome Here Nikki" is Daniels' best song in a rap career that's been as quiet as his NBA career. It's a track sleezy enough to force you to take a shower afterward. Also, "Nikki" with two "k"s sounds like bad news.
17.Kobe Bryant
Key Track: K.O.B.E. feat. Tyra Banks
Key Lyric: "What I live for? Basketball, beats, and broads/ From Italy to the US, yes, it's raw/"
Very little will make you feel as uncomfortable as this Kobe Bryant x Tyra Banks track. There's no let-up. Once you think you're in the clear and all the forced Kobe rhymes have ended, you're hit with another avalanche of "ick" as non-singer Tyra Banks talks her weird hook. It's just blow after cringe-inducing blow for nearly four minutes. It's the Ray Allen DM Fail of rap tracks.
18.Deion Sanders
Key Track: Must Be the Money
Key Lyric: "My hair is done, my fingernails too/ Six buttons down and I don't know what to do"
Here's an accurate description of the eternally bad "Must Be The Money" if you've somehow missed out on it all these years: Imagine hearing Snagglepuss pleasuring himself during some sort of comedown from cocaine and another illegal substance. Pretty batshit bad sound. But at least Sanders wasn't kidding about it being about money. MC Hammer had to auction off the house where the video was filmed as he went broke.
19.Stevie Johnson
Key Track: Ya Boy
Key Lyric: "All about my Bills like Stevie Johnson/ All my women throw it back like I caught an option"
Unlike many on this list, Stevie Johnson has actually been rhyming here and there for a while. "I've been writing and rhyming since high school," he said to ESPN. "I have always had a pen and pad with me." And look! Here he is with braids rhyming back in his Kentucky days. He's also worked with Game on a joint that dropped back in 2012, Experience doesn't teach a good ear for beats, however. Sometimes a capella works.
20.Allen Iverson
Key Track: 40 Bars
Key Lyric: "Everybody stay fly get money kill and fuck bitches/"
Don't even need a bar to follow this one. This single sentence encapsulates how hard Allen "Jewlez" Iverson went on this track out of nowhere. Did he think about himself as the NBA's biggest celebrity or as a role model or having to answer questions from square-ass media members about using gay slurs and being violent in his lyrics? Nope. Just spit 40 rugged bars and called it a career. Many of us would've assumed Iverson would be a better rapper than this since he was the face of hip hop in the NBA for a generation, but fuck it. Everybody stay fly get money kill and fuck bitches.
21.Clint Dempsey
Key Track: It's Poppin feat. XO
Key Lyric: "See my followers, I'm not common/ Though I was raised off that ramen/ Lifted spirits, shamen/ Have you seeing lights like a lawman/"
Check out the footy flow on Dempsey. Lyrically he's not exactly Kendrick quite yet, but his flow on "It's Poppin" is actually quite impressive. Even moreso when you compare it to his earlier "Don't Tread" track. Is this Clint Dempsey or Twista with a Paul Wall accent? Can't be mad at rapid-fire rhymes from Captain America.
22.LeBron James
Key Track: FuckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt
Key Lyric: "Say what you want about the king/ Got Money, got cribs, and whips and oh yeah, I got TWO RINGS"
Perhaps the best thing about King James rapping is how his close to baritone voice can edge you off to sleep—no need for that NyQuil. James is the diesel-ass dude in the corner gently nodding along and quietly reciting the lyrics to whatever the DJ puts on. He probably slowly sips two cups of Henny on the rocks at most and stares at you from that corner until you come over and give him a dap.
"What's up, LeBron? You good?"
"Yeah, bruh. I'm out here...chillin'"
Those guys are the worst.
23.Chris Johnson
Key Track: Act On Deck
Key Lyric: "CJ2K on them hoes/ I just give 'em dick, don't cater the hoes/"
Underrated heat. Is Chris Johnson a good rapper? Probably not. But in terms of picking beats and dropping a fire song while recording on what sounds like a Yak Back stuffed in a toilet, he's the greatest. Who needs studio quality when you got jail phone audio and misogynistic rhymes? Not CJ.
24.Randy Savage
Key Track: Be a Man
Key Lyric: "Hot diggity damn Hulk I'm glad you set it off (set if off)/ Used to be hard Hulk now ya done turned soft/"
At initial glance this entire Randy Savage rap album is hilarious, but then you realize something: Macho Man was serious with this. This isn't Randy making an ironic rap album or a project he put together with Adult Swim for S's & G's, these were real shitty bars over real shitty beats on a real shitty 14-track CD. Rest in peace to one of the greatest wresters of all-time, we only wish he wasn't outlived by this terrible, terrible album. Hot diggity damn.
25.Steve Francis
Key Track: Finer Things
Key Lyric: "You niggas are worthless you're looking at a boss/ We'll never be the same we're cut from a different cloth"
Ever wonder if Steve Francis watches this video and just cries at the irony?
26.Tony Parker
Key Track: Premier Love
Key Lyric: "On s'est connus, on était gosses t'étais mon premier love/ Bien avant l'basket, mon premier titre, toujours ensemble à l'époque/" ... I don't know what this says because I don't speak French
I would simply write "this is the worst," but according to this list it apparently isn't. But trust me, in any other context besides this specific list, French-rapping mid-2000s Tony Parker is the worst.
27.Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Key Track: Yep
Key Lyric: "It's like one to the two, two to the three/ These hating ass niggas can't fuck with me"
Quick disclaimer: Digging out the above elementary-ass lyrics when Mayweather's reading skills have been called into question is a pure coincidence.
28.John Cena
Key Track: The Time is Now
Key Lyric: "In case you forgot or fell off I'm still hot, knock your shell off/ My money stack fat plus I can't turn the swell off/"
We respect wrestlers and their hustle and their struggle and the pain they endure to put on countless shows for unappreciative audiences all around the world, but let's call a spade a spade. John Cena is a fake rapper in a fake sport. Not gonna lie and say that "plus I can't turn the swell off" line isn't hot, but this is Jadakiss' flow and it would sound better with a little more Jada and a lot less John Cena.
29.Roy Jones, Jr.
Key Track: Ya'll Must Have Forgot
Key Lyric: "Let's look back at my whole career Cuz y'all musta forgot!"
Yes, Roy Jones Jr. still boxes. And yes, Jones Jr. still raps. The former is forgivable, because the man does take care of business in the ring. As for the later, it's hard to imagine anybody co-signing his fake Mystikal shtick. There's also no way in hell "Ya'll Must Have Forgot" is remotely forgivable. Here's an excerpt below:
"Hit Percy Harris with four hooks at one time/ Y'all musta forgot!/
When I beat Bernard Hopkins, and won the IBF/ The right was hurt, beat him with the left/ Y'all musta forgot/ You remember the left hook that James Toney got/ Sucka move that I stole from a gamecock."
Yes. He's really yell-rapping his career to you. Jones Jr. comes off as one of those fathers who really hasn't had much in life. You know, the ones who throw their entire life story into a single discussion with their sons when the main point of the conversation is to warn them to not fuck up and be forced to pay child support.