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The 5 Worst Lyrics Ever to Ruin Good Rap Songs

By Chris Pitino, Jack O'Brien August 25, 2006 166,057 views
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An admission at the outset: these aren't the five worst rap lyrics of all time. This list consists of mostly well-known, primarily well-respected hip hop artists. The thing is, we don't listen to bad rap, and neither should you. Bad rap is, like, really bad, and there's TONS of it.

Also, we aren't ranking the dumbest hip-hop lyrics ever. That would be like making a list of people Hitler was mean to. There have been 6 million lyrics across the brief history of rap so dumb that they should be punishable as crimes against humanity. Sometimes rap lyrics are so dumb they're ingenious, and we love those lyrics like a fat kid loves cake.

So what criteria are we using to judge these lyrics? That will be explained as we examine each of the offending phrases. For now, let's just acknowledge that there is an unspoken contract between rappers and their listeners, which boils down to this: "While I'm listening to rap, I want to feel like we are both cool and like we are both bulletproof. Don't say anything that's going to fuck up either of those illusions for me." The following lyrics from some of our favorite rappers, embedded as MP3s below (the little black bars), violated that contract in spectacular fashion.


5. "Girls, Girls, Girls"
Jay-Z



Mami's a narcoleptic, always sleepin' on Hov',
Gotta tie the back of her head like Deuce Bigalow.

As a rapper, part of your unspoken contract states that you are only permitted to reference or show interest in three movies: Scarface, Carlito's Way and The Godfather. There is also the Wu Tang Clause that states that a certain type of East Coast rapper is permitted to quote kung fu and blaxploitation films, but that's it. All other cinema is off limits.

And this quote is a perfect example of why that law exists: as any rap video will show you, most rappers have awful taste in clothing, jewelry and cars, so in all likelihood they have bad taste in movies too.

This mouth turd, from the fourth track of what is an otherwise sparkling outing from Hov, confirms what we always feared: were it not for the incessant Pacino quoting, Jay-Z would probably be dropping quotes from Police Academy 4 and Three Men and a Little Lady (and yes, we are making the argument that Rob Schneider is the Steve Gutenberg of our decade).

Also, please note that from a song that is abhorrently misogynistic, and invokes almost every single racial stereotype in the book (literally every single one: black, white, Asian, Indian-dot, Indian-feather, stewardess-we challenge you to create a racial stereotype to which he doesn't refer), we chose a line about Deuce Bigalow. Why? Because rappers are allowed to be misogynistic racists. They're just not allowed to acknowledge that they watch Rob Schneider movies.




4. "Keep Ya Head Up"
Tupac



I give a holler to my sisters on welfare,
Tupac cares, (and don't / even if) nobody else care.

There is a clause in the rapper's social contract stating that on each album, the rapper is allotted a single song that discusses feelings and emotions. Of course, he must immediately go back to bragging about murdering people, lest he end up in PM Dawn territory. Tupac was among the best in the history of rap at going from empathetic good guy to violent thug without missing a beat, and "Keep Ya Head Up" is among his most popular sensitive guy songs.

So why does this lyric make the list? Well, if you delete this line, the entire song comes off as an ultra-sincere meditation on the plight of single women. However, by claiming that he's the only man in the world who cares about single women, he stumbles into the realm of "pathetic guy saying anything to get laid." We're guessing it was written during or immediately following one of Pac's longer stints in prison, because, to borrow a phrase from The 40-Year-Old Virgin, he is clearly putting the pussy up on a pedestal. With this line he momentarily became the rap equivalent of your buddy who's willing to throw you under the bus to impress a girl he just met. Only Pac seems to be willing to throw all of his buddies, and every other guy on the face of Earth under the bus with the outlandish claim that he is the only person in the world who cares about women on welfare.

He also refers to himself in the third person, giving the whole affair an odd "Jimmy likes Elaine" vibe that's pretty tough to get over. We can just see him at the bar: "Your grandma died of stomach cancer? Tupac worked in a lab for the past 12 years trying to cure stomach cancer! The other scientists are always telling me, 'Fuck stomach cancer, it's a dead end cancer research field.' I guess you could say that Tupac's the only person in the world who cares about stomach cancer. Don't be alarmed by my erection. It's just all this talk about stomach cancer, which I care about."

3. "Jesus Walks"
Kanye West



I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers,
The way Kathie Lee needed Regis that's the way y'all need Jesus.

Kanye is not a traditional rapper in many senses. He dresses like he's being photographed for GQ (even on the rare occasion when he's not being photographed for GQ) and he's one of the few rappers that openly admits to having attended a college other than the school of hard knocks, which under normal circumstances, is a clear violation of the rapper's social contract. He's able to get away with violating the college clause because a) he's pretty damn good, and b) his first two albums were almost entirely about how much he hated college (rappers aren't stupid, they know about the contract). But mostly, he gets away with it because he's an extremely gifted musician. And "Jesus Walks" is a great song. Which is strange, because ever since MC Hammer's ham assed "Pray," religious rap has made us throw up a little bit in our mouths. With "Jesus Walks," Kanye made it work again, which makes the Kathy Lee and Regis reference that much more profoundly upsetting. The line is so bad that it defines the way one experiences the entire song. There's the part before, marked by a vague sense of doom that comes with the knowledge that he's about to compare Jesus to Regis Philbin. Then there's the part after, marked by you cringing and looking around you to see if anyone else noticed how profoundly retarded that line really is.

The only excuse we can come up with is that this is Kanye's point. As he says in the song, "they say you can rap about anything except for Jesus." By the time he raps that line, he's already proven them wrong on both points. You can rap about Jesus and make it cool. But you can't rap about anything because you sure as shit can't rap about Kathy Lee Gifford.

2. "What's Beef?"
NOTORIOUS B.I.G.



Don't they know my nigga Gutter fuckin' kidnap kids?
Fuck 'em in the ass, throw 'em over the bridge.

Ummm ... What?

Did you just say...

When we first heard this line, we reacted like Chris Parnell upon hearing Ron Burgundy tell San Diegans to go fuck themselves: 'Why Biggie? Why!? You were our hero and now you have to go and ruin it with your poop mouth!'

Don't get us wrong, violence in rap is, for the most part, acceptable across the board. Whether you're talking about slapping a woman (Eazy E, "Boyz N Da Hood"), shooting a cop (Ice T, "Cop Killah'") or cutting off and mailing someone's body parts to them (Jay Z, Nas, Biggie-All The Time) we're all for it. The violence is all part of trying to get ahead in the game, and that, for some reason, is okay.

But bragging that you hang out with people who rape children? Well, that crosses just about every line that rap has been tip-toeing up to this point in time. Saying you're friends with Pablo Escobar? Bad ass. Saying you're friends with the Atlanta Child Strangler? Ummm, not cool, really in any circles. Firing off shots in a crowded lobby (Nas, "NY State of Mind") is great, we just don't want to hear how you like fucking hitch hikers with a buzz-saw before turning them into a skin suit (Biggie, "The Album He Probably Would Have Made Were He Still Alive").


1. "Rapper's Delight"
Sugarhill Gang



The Chicken Verse (too long, too much badness, just listen to the damn thing)

A non rap fan attempting to rap is one of the most embarrassing things most hip hop fans will ever have to endure. More often than not, it will start with a parent or a republican friend making the argument that all rap sounds the same and that rhyming a bunch of words together would be easy. They'll inevitably begin their impromptu free-style with a ridiculous approximation of beatboxing that sounds something like an asthmatic cartoon character. Things get worse with the verse, which will go something like, "Yo I went to the store, the store was a bore, yo G I'm hard core." They'll probably end the performance with their arms crossed in an exaggerated b-boy stance that they saw on the cover of a Run DMC album in the late '80s.

Why do we tell this story when talking about "Rappers Delight"? Because the song that is often credited with launching the entire art form also houses one of the genre's darkest secrets: its longest verse was written by your mother. There's really no other excuse for the rambling, fourth grade poetry project cluster of words that is the Chicken Verse. It spends about a minute and a half criticizing the rapper's friend's mother's homemade chicken dinner. We know we're in trouble right off the bat with the opening line, 'have you ever been over your friend's house to eat, and the food just ain't no good?' You half expect him to follow that up by blowing into the mic and saying, 'This thing on? Anyone? C'mon people work with me here.' Instead, he goes into a detailed account of what exactly is wrong with the food (the macaroni's soggy, the peas are all mushed and the chicken, well, it tastes like wood, in case you're scoring at home).

Thank Christ hip hop took its cues from an earlier verse of the song, where one of the rappers spits cool sounding gibberish and brags about having fucked Lois Lane. Just think: rather than the driving cultural force it is today, rap could have been a long forgotten avant-garde offshoot of professional food criticism.


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103 Comments

@kinky_kitty:

You know what I love? A good stereotype. I'm black and I love listening to rap, but most of the music I listen to contributes to the stereotypes and that's fine with me. It's fun to listen to unless you're someone who takes it too far (because rap is serious business!)and starts imitating these sort of things because Biggie told you to. I'm guessing you're the type of person who sends angry letters to comedians and TV shows when they make fun of a stereotype. It's a joke, take it as such. I make fun of black people all the time because many of us insist on living up to the stereotype and those who don't get indignant when people laugh. At my college I see a lot of the "gangstas" (although it is [i]community[/i] college. See? That was a joke, I fully understood that was a stereotype and exploited it for entertainment value) and the first thing I think isn't "Good for you, you've excelled about the stereotypical media holding us back," it's nothing, because it's not unusual to see. Stereotypes are jokes that have little effect on what is actually going on (although, once again, some people allow it to radically affect their thinking because stereotypes are serious business). Would you be complaining if the opposite were true? If most rap was about helping your community, cleaning your room, puppy dogs, and candy canes, and rainbows while there were a few songs about sex, drugs, money, and violence would you still be outraged at this article? Once again: It's a joke, take it as such.

P.S.: I love Jesus.

9/12/2009 9:05:13 PM
CJDaMocha

Dude, it's like, a joke.

9/8/2009 6:58:57 PM
boobsrbig

Kanye West isn't an "extremely gifted musician". He's a hack that samples other peoples well written songs and then puts dull raps over the top of it.

8/29/2009 5:08:08 PM
feedingear

The chicken verse in rapper's delight is hilarious and a nice break from the same old s**t you still hear in every rap song.

Kanye West is a gifted musician? Anyone who actually still believes in Jesus, let alone raps about him, is dim-witted and simple-minded. If you want to praise Kanye or Jesus or whatever his name is, keep it off CRACKED.

8/27/2009 10:51:17 PM
darkjon64

so, your definition of bad lyrics is rappers not being a stereotype? wow, that sort of makes you an ass.and also warrants the need for you to follow your own advice to lil wayne in another posting- namely, to do some research. first of all, the tupac lyric is "tupac cares, even if nobody else cares". the song has nothing to do with him getting laid, it's actually about being able to keep your head up under unfavorable circumstances. hence the title, "keep ya head up"... it was referring to your actual head, not the one on your dick... but oh yeah, rappers aren't permitted to rap about anything except for sex, drugs, scarface, and rims, so, yeah, that would by your standard mean tupac's lyrics suck. maybe you listened to brenda's got a baby and thought, "oh, man, tupac must really want to get laid by a 12 yo prostitute that was raped molested and murdered by a trick after whoring to feed her baby."
then again, i get the feeling you have never listened to any tupac that was made pre-death row.
jay-z- believe it or not, it's perfectly acceptable to watch more than goodfellas. really. what you watch on tv has nothing to do with street cred. in fact, until dicks like you started hyping this media-created rap feud s**t, street cred was some abstract concept that had no meaning. thank you for letting us know that the ability to watch movies that don't star pacino or deniro, and then admit to it, makes one lose street cred. is it like kool aid points? will we get a nifty mug if we're "gangster" enough? you tard.
sugarhill gang- the whole point of the entire f*****g song is to laugh. every single verse of the song is basically a humorous party track.this predates gangster rap... so does that mean sugarhill gang sucked for not being a stereotype even though the stereotype didn't exist yet? or are you a douchebag who listened to the whole song about hotels, motels, buttered toast, macaroni and cheese, rockin out baby bubba, purple and yellow people, and were taking it seriously until you got to the cardboard chicken and said, "what? this is where you lost me. because it was so hardcore and real until then! dammit!"
and, as far as kanye west, the kathie lee reference was a good one. she actually did need regis, as evidenced by her toilet soaked career and pathetic attempt to get back to co-hosting with regis. i think it takes more than referencing a person one time in an entire song to call it rapping about kathie lee.
also- let me get this straight, attending college is against the "rappers code"? is this a code you made up? because really, you need to do research. lil wayne went to college.so did david banner, paul wall, plies, common, chamillionaire, rick ross, lil jon, roxanne shante, guru, russell simmons, asher roth, mobb deep, flava flav, lupe fiasco, chuck d, diddy, young mc, ludacris, ice cube, dead prez, master p, gucci mane, c-bo.... and that is a small list. so really, "rappers don't go to college" is your own simple ass stereotype.
i love cracked. but i suggest you stick to s**t you know about, and rap definitely doesn't fall into that category.

8/27/2009 8:20:37 AM
kinky_kitty

Better version of Rapper's Delight (mc's delight) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDlgB9MbLNA

8/27/2009 6:52:50 AM
thedaneurysm

Every word in "Rapper's Delight" that wasn't incomprehensible bullshit was written by Grandmaster Caz (stolen by Big Bank Hank)

8/27/2009 6:50:23 AM
thedaneurysm

MissEducation: saying Deuce Bigalow was a pimp is rather like saying Easy Cheese is a food. While technically true, saying still makes you look like a f*****g moron.

8/26/2009 9:55:40 PM
Lachwen

PeezyTX nails it

8/26/2009 7:51:40 AM
coolkidcity

VLADIMIRVERBANK: But only in rap is that considered a good thing, and higher education is strongly discouraged for some retarded reason.

8/23/2009 4:36:43 PM
wickedmonkey

"Things get worse with the verse"

Look, understand, it is very easy.

8/21/2009 5:03:27 AM
Fuckaccounts

I feel like MissEducation went and created her username before leaving her comment, as if to say "Ouch, I totally just schooled this fool."

8/20/2009 8:55:37 AM
LizzyStardust

You forgot DMX "Bring Your Whole Crew"

"I got blood on my hands, I got no remorse
I got blood on my DICK 'cause I FUCKED A CORPSE!" (emphasis mine)

EEWWWWWW!

8/5/2009 10:13:35 PM
UdoShan

I love cracked and I also love to see s**t get made fun of but this is Cracked's second offense in the last several weeks in the realm of clowining s**t that they're not too knowledgeable about. A few weeks back it was skateboarding. THe argument was that skateboarding is in no way justifiable for adults. Stupid premise so the rest of it wasn't funny. Here they had the golden ticket to trash s****y rap lines but instead they just took lines where rappers stepped out of character and then blasted them for it. I love when rappers break their "social contract" and reference goofy ass films or day time TV. It shows that they're drawing on the culture as a whole to produce music for the whole culture. When they only reference cliched gangster films or designer clothing it limits the scope of the music and narrows the audience it will reach. Bottom line when rappers step outside the box that s**t should be celebrated. That is all.

8/5/2009 12:58:12 PM
PeezyTX

to MissEducation, Deuce Bigalow was the hoe not a pimp that is all.

8/4/2009 10:11:10 AM
Nemmo

To Snarky24, I know that there are a lot of great rock legends or groups who or whose members did not go to college so shut the hell up

5/26/2009 6:38:13 PM
VLADIMIRVERBANK

I just want to clear something up... Biggie's line in What's Beef isnt something he's bragging about. He's talking about how out of control and disturbing some rivalries go... He is not happy about it

5/17/2009 6:33:32 AM
wowiamcool108

@Demmagog
"So you try to play it off like you think you can by saying that you're full,
And then your friend says, 'Mama, he just bein' polite, he ain't finished at all, that's bull!'"

There ya go. Fixed it up all pretty and correct for you. Don't feel bad- yours was pretty(ish) too, it just wasn't correct.

5/14/2009 9:06:10 PM
buyrihn

haha.. I love how some people always take funny articles so personally and believe it to be either A)displaying a lack of knowledge or B)attacking them. Some people get so defensive it's almost as if the list was "5 things your mother uses when she plays 'hide the vegetable'"

5/13/2009 4:49:11 PM
pcelvcitrs

Thank you Cracked! I've been calling out "the chicken verse" for years, and nobody ever remembers it! It's one of the most hilariously dumb things I have ever heard in hip-hop.

"So you try to play it off like you figure you can't lose
Saying that you're full
Your friend says man there's plenty of food
You aint finished, uh-uh, that's bull"

5/13/2009 7:42:55 AM
Demmagog

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