All Of The pre-Eminem White Rappers I Liked and Happy Black History Month!
Being white doesn't mean you can't rap. You just have to work twice as hard to prove you can.
Eminem is one of the best rappers ever to do it, not just for his incredible bars, but also for how most rappers from his era speak about him. I just saw a video of a Black Detroit rapper called Trick Trick, talking about handling "problems" for Eminem and being rewarded with the rights to a popular song from Eminem that made enough money to set him up for life. Eminem also brought up a variety of rappers with him including D-12, Slaughterhouse, and Royce da 5'9. Eminem gives back.
That’s why Eminem and his friends are dope.
However, this piece isn't about Eminem. It's about all the white rappers I liked before My Name Is came out in 1999.
...and the white Rappers are!
Before I begin this chronicle of white rap excellence, please keep in mind that I grew up in the suburbs around mostly white kids. While I had much love for LL Cool J and MC Hammer, there was a lot of love for these guys. Keep in mind, many won't think some are "rappers" while some will be embarrassed of the names I bring up or the juvenile humor these guys added to their songs.
Feel free to leave comments about anyone you love, hate, or don't think is an actual rapper. I look forward to my future battles.
The Beastie Boys: Always on vacation since 1981.
The Beastie Boys started as an early 80s punk band that transitioned to hip-hop in 1983. They hired Rick Rubin as their DJ and were later signed to Def Jam Records in 1984 before. During that time the group went on tour with a young Madonna and nobody was fighting for the right to party at those shows when Madonna wasn’t on stage. The Beastie Boys have been described in a multitude of ways over their 30-year career. Hilarious, arrogant, and stupid, these guys have done it all, and much of it has been amazing.
The first time I heard of these guys was when my mother started singing Brass Monkey for some odd reason. The first time I paid close attention to this group was when I saw the video for So What'Cha Want which was visually amazing as they danced around the woods and dropped rhymes on top of each other's rhymes. With classic hip-hop, a group of rappers would often interrupt each other on time and add so much more to the song like Coast Contra does now.
Over time their sound became more sophisticated and I gave all of my attention to the Beastie Boys after seeing the video for Sabotage. The punk style of this song was my introduction to Punk music. At the time, I'd never heard anything like it. The Beastie Boys have blown minds since the beginning.
Vanilla Ice: Take heed. Cause he's a lyrical poet. In case you didn't know it.
Back when hip-hop was young and fun, there was an upstart named Rob Van Winkle who came out of nowhere. Rap music was revolutionary and independent when it started, but once those record execs realized how much money they could make their hands started slowly taking away the pot.
Out of that dream of wealth came Vanilla Ice.
To The Extreme dropped in 1990 and with it came Vanilla Ice's biggest hit, Ice Ice Baby. This was a monster hit when I was about nine years old, and all the kids at my school loved it. We loved it so much it was played during our PhysEd workouts. I learned most of the lyrics to it without trying and earned praise when I unleashed them.
This breakdancer turned rapper talking about a weekend running drugs in south Florida had all the white kids I knew dancing in hallways. That love got bigger when this man showed up in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 with "Go ninja go ninja go" dancing with the turtles to a song called Ninja Rap.
The world was Ice’s oyster... until Suge Knight (allegedly) showed up at his Hotel. Allegedly, Suge held Ice off a balcony and threatened to drop him if he didn’t sign over the rights to Ice Ice Baby. Knight (allegedly) used that money to start Death Row Records.
The Kottonmouth Kings: Bump! Bump! Bump! That's that sound of the 50s when I'm taking a dump!
Not a lot of people know these guys. I'm not even sure how I know these guys. Back in high school when my life was riding around in Jack's "Tank" I was hipped to these guys, but who can say? I remember one song from this group where they cracked the tab on all the whiteness from accents to invites. It's called Bump and is still a banger. It also sounds like the music that brought the white kids to the raves of the late 90s.
Cake: The Distance is a rap song.
Cake is an American rock band. They have a vocalist, guitars, drums, bass, and a sick-ass trumpet player. They dip expertly in all the genres they draw from moving from norteño to disco. Cake is a great band, and on the song, The Distance from their 1996 album Fashion Nugget, John McCrea raps his ass off.
This is another song I was introduced to by an MTV video as I watched a guy in a suit "strive and drive as fast as he can." I am aware many people might not agree with me, but this singer is rapping, the bass line is catchy, this trumpet is awesome, and these drums effing bounce. McCrea has this stiff delivery of his lines. His voice is low and kind of monotone, but he knows exactly how to use it. I would love to see this band live when I can and they might be on tour right now.
The Bloodhound Gang: This band knows exactly who and what they are.
The Bloodhound Gang has been making music since 1992 and it took half a decade before they took off. As a rap guy who was in a rap influenced band (Hypnotic Fist Technique), I can tell tell you that vocalist Jimmy Pop is rapping on most or all of the Bloodhound Gang's songs. I only know a couple. One which was more underground and the other was so big we couldn't get away from it.
Fire Water Burn from 1996, is their leading single, and begins with a catchy guitar lick and Jimmy Pop saying, "The roof is on fire," which itself is an early hip hop phrase. After that he raps his way through the rest of the song. This man is not respected or known in hip hop culture, but there he was in 1996 kicking flows about his whiteness and heaven and whatever else was on the table... on a table.
Years later The Bloodhound Gang released their biggest song, The Bad Touch where the band dresses up like monkeys and gets up to TV-appropriate hijinks. The Bloodhound Gang is considered a comedy band, and they know this. They use that moniker to their advantage. In addition, they are only one of two white rappers I've ever heard refer to themselves as a "honkey." If you’re nothing but a mammal, I’m sure you can guess the other one.
Dynamite Hack: I can't believe it's not Eazy-E
I know very little about this band save that their biggest hit wasn't one of their own songs. It was a song created by Eazy-E called Boyz-N-The-Hood turned into an acoustic guitar track that came out in 1997.
If the Bloodhound Gang is comedy then Dynamite Hack is absurd. Weird Al would do covers of famous songs but would rewrite the lyrics. Dynamite Hack tracked the song from beginning to end keeping all of the lyrics Eazy used including the N-word. That was likely why the rest of their debut album didn't go very far. A band of white dudes saying the N-word is a no-no, and it still is still the case don’t get cute, white boys. I’ve never listened to anything else this Austin band ever made. I’d understand anyone who didn’t think they were rappers, but when you cover the second most gangster rap songs ever made, they deserve to be on this list. You also deserve to be on the list if you know the first most gangster rap song ever made.
Plus, I had never heard Boyz-N-The-Hood before. My cousins tried to force NWA onto me, but parents cut that off really quick.
Beck: Loser is a rap song too.
Beck is a great artist. He's done it all from winning Grammies off a folk record to creating an entire album with Pharrell Williams (it's called Hyperspace). Back in 1993, Beck would score his first hit with a song called Loser.
Loser has ridiculous lyrics and an amazing chorus written in half-Spanish. The whole song banged from top to bottom and the music video is wacky as well. Just this tiny jumping dude, coffins moving by themselves with an old man in it who cuts the sound when Beck tells him to. Part of the reason why this song is so fun is that it pops off lingo that seems pretty senseless in retrospect. Even now, I have no idea what this song is about.
To a guy like Beck, genre is a myth. He's touched all of them including horny funk with a track titled Debra. That song is fun because when you listen, you know exactly what it's about…
Beck, you crazy.
The Insane Clown Posse: Pure Dark Carnival Horrorcore
The Insane Clown Posse or ICP as they're collectively known have lifetime sales of 6.5 million units, two platinum albums, and five gold ones. In addition to these incredible numbers, they also have a legion of fans or Juggalos in the tens of thousands. Most importantly in this conversation, They come from Detroit, Michigan just like Eminem who often raps about the same violent things he does. Oh... ICP are also wrestlers who run their own wrestling promotion and wear very recognizable black and white clown makeup.
Despite all this, many people do not know who ICP is. Their jokes would get you canceled, their tracks have likely been banned. The Juggalos are a mafia even the police have to avoid. Somehow all of this went under the noses of so many Statesiders.
I was introduced to this group back when I was riding along in my friend's cars. In my friend Jack's "Tank," we'd listen to the Chef Aid: South Park Album, techno music, and the Insane Clown Posse. ICP has its own mythology about a Dark Carnival described by Wikipedia as:
A metaphoric limbo in which the lives of the dead are judged by one of several entities."
ICP is basically a cult with legions of fans. If you've seen the movie Kneecap, ICP is similar to the rap group in that film, but instead of rapping in the Irish language ICP started creating their own. It consists of words like '“Faygo,” “neden” and a new use of the term “Shangri-la.”
For a kid like me, seeing people like George Clinton, Ol' Dirty Bastard, and Snoop Dogg on their records blew my mind. Seeing Houston band the Geto Boys made me think my mind was playing tricks on me. How could this duo of white rappers have been so famous and worked with so many greats? It's because they've been putting work in and touring for 10 years before The Amazing Jeckel Brothers came out.
The most fun thing about ICP was that they had a beef with Eminem in '97 while he was figuring his Slim Shady gimmick out. That shit went on until 2005. White rappers were throwing barbs back and for at each other for 8 years until Em’s group D-12 and Psychopathic Records made them end it. That's what those Ken Kaniff bits on Eminem's early records were about.
So if you haven't heard of the Insane Clown Posse, I suggest you be careful if you decide to check them out. A lot of the juvenile humor they built their career off of has not aged well over 35 years. There are a few amazing moments and thoughtful songs, but there is a whole lot of calling women outside their names, lots of talk about blood and gore, magic cards, and the Dark Carnival. It’s sick in an interesting (?) way.
Happy Black History Month, White Folks!
As long as there has been hip-hop, there have been white rappers. Some started as break dancers, some were in live bands, and some had a legion of Juggalos at their beck and call. Many of these white rappers weren't respected or known by Black people and still aren't by the Hip-Hop Community, but that's ok. These guys and their careers can't be stopped in a land where Jesus is white and Columbus Day is still celebrated.
I grew up around white kids and it was cool to feel rebellious and plugged in. That's why these rappers were popular and grew huge fanbases. In the United States, if you're a rapper of any race and want to be a star, you have to get white people to love you. Sometimes you can be loved so much that you'll be in every commercial, become best friends with Martha Stewart, and play Donald Trump's inauguration party like Snoop Dogg despite talking shit about anyone who would do such a thing in 2016.
Making money through music has always been a hard game, and it’s only gotten harder with time. Still, there will always be great songs from great bands to help us get through our terrible days. With that, I want to wish all the white people a Happy Black History Month!
If you want to feel better, check out Funan Beat Empire featuring me, Mike Dynamo, Indian emcee Initial G, and our two French producers/DJs. All the best house is French house. With the way times are now, it could help to remember what Harrison Ford and Mike Dynamo said about fixing our environment and how great of an idea a less captitalist government might be.
Also, it’s white history month for 11 months out of the year so knock off all that silly talk.
Can't believe you put Beck's Loser and not Tom Tom Club's Wordy Rappinghood or Genius of Love.