The 12 Least Impressive Boasts in Rap Lyrics
Rappers love to brag about all the fun stuff they get to do and all the cool people they get to meet. And why wouldn't they? I'm sure having hoes in every area code is way more awesome than having a mortgage on a three-bedroom home in the suburbs or whatever other mundane achievement normal people strive for.
But sometimes, those boasts stray into territory that seems anything but impressive. And that's good, because I've literally made a career out of making fun of them for it. Why do I keep going back to this same well over and over? Because it never runs dry, that's why.
In today's episode, we'll be taking a look at a few rappers who took their boasting to new heights by shouting out some of the dorkiest things imaginable. Things that not even the commonest of commoners would ever be excited about.
Here are 12 of the lamest boasts in recent hip-hop history...
#12. Drake - "Headlines"
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The Lyric
"Tuck my napkin in my shirt cuz I'm just mobbin like that"
Why It's Lame
Look, I'm not even 100% sure what "mobbin" means, but I've heard rappers use that word hundreds of times. There is no way in hell that they're referring to tucking a napkin in your shirt like a 6-year-old eating chicken noodle soup at the dinner table.
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"I'm from the streets bitch!"
Ice Cube has an entire song called "Steady Mobbin" and if there even is a mention of a napkin in the lyrics, which I'm sure there's not, it would likely be referring to the one he used to clean up all the jizz after nailing some hoodrat in the back of an Impala.
Tell me about the drugs you've sold or the people you've shot or all the money you made before you were old enough to legally drink and then I'll accept your "mobbin" boasts, Drake. Until then, what you consider "mobbin" is really just "being a pretentious dick at dinner." You might as well be boasting about all those years you spent playing the wheelchair bound kid on DeGrassi High.
#11. Young Jeezy - "Black Dreams"
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The Lyric
"Holla at ya boy, yeah I can do alot for ya, Speakin my language if you talkin bout tilapia"
Why It's Lame
Tilapia? Your language is that relatively cheap fish you can buy in bags from the frozen section of damn near every grocery store on earth? That's your language?
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He's also fluent in salmon.
To Jeezy's credit, and I can't believe I just referred to a grown man as "Jeezy", I did run a quick Urban Dictionary search for "tilapia" and have determined that he's referring to one of four things:
1. Cocaine
2. Vagina
3. Filipino vagina
4. A person who smells
He's probably talking about cocaine, but I'm holding out at least some hope that he's talking about Filipino vagina, because I love specifics.
#10. Lil Wayne - "3 Peat"
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The Lyric
"I just do this shit for my click like Adam Sandler"
Why It's Lame
Yes, I get it, this is clever. Because, see, Click was the name of an Adam Sandler movie, right? But also, Adam Sandler has a long track record of casting his close friends in all of his films. Close friends who would probably be unemployed otherwise. And close friends could also be referred to as a "clique." So Adam Sandler's movie career is all to help his friends out, and Lil' Wayne is similarly charitable with his less talented friends.
So, clever, yes. But think about the implications here. Basically, Lil' Wayne is saying he's the Adam Sandler of rap. By extension, this would make Drake the Kevin James of rap and Nicki Minaj the Rob Schneider of rap. And all of the other anonymous members of his clique are just that dude with the bushy eyebrows who shows up in every Sandler movie despite not even having a name.
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Who the fuck are you?
Is this really what you're aspiring to be, Lil' Wayne? Wouldn't you rather be the Judd Apatow of rap or something? Have some standards, man.
#9. Timbaland - "All Y'all"
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The Lyric
"Live life to the fullest, drive cars, eat hot food, live in a mansion next to Hanson"
Why It's Lame
Man, talk about a roller coaster ride of a boast. When you hear "live life to the fullest" you're like "Yeah, man, that's how I want to live my life." But then you get to "drive cars, eat hot food" and you're all "Shit, you mean I'm already living life to the fullest? That's disappointing."
But things quickly take a turn for the better with "live in a mansion" and you're thinking "Right, we're back on track now. Hot food in a mansion. That's the best food, Timbaland, the best!" And then it all comes crashing down when you find out that mansion is "next to Hanson" and you decide you'd rather keep your day job than move in next to a band of shitty one-hit wonders.
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"Mmmmmbop!"
And why in the hell would the members of Hanson not have their own homes? Weren't those dudes all damn near in their 30's by the time this song came out? And before anyone asks, no, I can't Google that information, because I don't care.
#8. Kanye West - "Big Brother"
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The Lyric
"I told Jay I did a song with Coldplay"
Why It's Lame
Motherfucker did you just say Coldplay? You did a song with Coldplay and you're bragging about it to people? You're a rapper, for the love of God. Doing a song with Coldplay isn't the kind of thing you boast about, it's the kind of thing you blame your record label for making you do because they felt the rest of the songs on your album weren't commercial enough.
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"Trust us on this one. We wouldn't have our arms crossed if we didn't understand rap music."
Don't get me wrong, Coldplay is a great band provided you've never heard of Radiohead and you have no personality. But, as a rapper, you just can't go bragging about recording songs with Coldplay. Why not just say "I did a song with a band that I hope will make more white people like me?" That's way more honest.
#7. Warren G - "I Want It All"
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The Lyric
"I want it all, brand new socks and drawers"
Why It's Lame
Man, how sad is this? In the middle of a song chock full of shout-outs to the finer things in life, Warren G throws "news socks and drawers" in the mix. The implications here are staggeringly depressing. Almost as depressing as his stint on VH1's Celebrity Fit Club
HipHopCrunch
Above: Rock Bottom
Has Warren G seriously never had a pair of new socks and underwear up to this point in his life? Or did he squander the money he made from that "Regulators" song so severely that he never managed to work his way up from a life of wearing second hand tighty-whities? Has he actually been buying that used underwear at a thrift store or just, like, getting them from Snoop Dogg when he was done with them?
Whatever the answers to those questions may be, never having new socks and drawers is some Sarah McLachlan abused pet commercial level sadness. If someone can confirm that Warren G did finally get the mint condition undergarments he's always dreamed of, I'd sleep a whole lot better tonight. Thanks.
I can't be bothered to read through all the other 1,132 comments here to check if it's already been mentioned or not but just fyi, Pass Out by Tinie Tempah has a pretty lame boast 'I got so many clothes I keep some in my aunt's house'.
ReplyIt is isn't Oeur de Whoppe, it's Ol-Wu-Wopte, Chigaco slang for a bullshit explanation. See, that's why none of the rest of the song is about sex at all, and it shows that you put no effort into your work, as you couldn't even bother to look at the context.
ReplyThe purpose of music in general is to entertain. Why do people look for song lyrics to relate to? Every song does not have to convey an important message. Especially rap music. That is a genre in which the listener is not expecting to hear an important message. In rap music, as long as what is being said matches the previous bar, and matches the tune of the record, that it is considered as such. At the end of the day, a person who didn't fully understand the concept of rap music created this article
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWhy is it that everytime a rapper gets pointed at for saying something stupid in a song, a "rap scholar" comes outta the woodwork to tell everybody they don't understand? Some s**t is just stupid. And y'know what? Not every rapper's ultimate goal is merely to make this line rhyme with the last one, however idiotic the line is. Sounds like *you* don't understand rap. Toss them Kanye mixtapes and start listening to rappers with talent and something to say.
Yea man, rap is generally just retarded. Its been terrible for years now. It used to be pretty good a long time ago, but now its mostly just drivel.
Kanye actually is talented, as a producer and lyricist.
Another line I'd include would be Wiz's "Saggin’ my pants, not caring what I show" from Young & Wild & Free. There is literally no underlying meaning to this line. He means he sags his pants. He sags his pants. He is boasting. About the fact. That he sags his pants. Therefore he doesn't care what people think. Watch out world! Wiz Khalifa will not conform to your pant-wearing ideals! He's doing it his own way! It's a Wiz-Revolution. Not really impressive at all. Maybe if you put on some weight those jeans wouldn't sag Wiz.
ReplyEven less impressive when every Junior McThug in the world is sagging their pants.
Although Royce is one of my favourite rappers, I would include him on this list for a line from Legendary. He says "I switch the fire up like I am a tranny from hell." I mean, yeah it's cool he switches it up but "a tranny from hell" is not generally someone anyone wants to be compared to. Especially a rapper. If someone called him that he'd probably f**k 'em up. To each his own though.
ReplyRaise two hands if you thought he was gonna say
Reply'my cock'
It only took me reading #12 to realize this author has downs. I don't even like Drake, in fact I think he sucks, HOWEVER he's referring to the fact that Italian mobsters would eat with napkins tucked in their shirts (they way real Italians still do today.) Is that very hard to figure out?
ReplyI think you have downs. Who the f**k cares? Rap blows, making fun of it is easy/hilarious.
People like you literally make me sick. You just admitted to making fun of an entire genre, not because it is bad, but because it is easy? Did you f*****g punch kids in wheelchairs in the face in elementary? I'd imagine that would be pretty easy, too.
*raises hand*
ReplyIn putting KRS-One's Holiday Inn punchline on this list you made a huge mistake. He is making an ALLUSION (which are used in hip-hop all the time) to the line in Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang that says "hotel, motel, Holiday Inn... And if your girl starts acting up, then you take her friend." What KRS is saying is that even though he's not down with all of the misogyny in the game, he still is hip-hop in its purest form.
ReplyThe fact that you didn't recognize that as an allusion to one of the most important tracks in the history of hip-hop just shows that you had no business making this list in the first place. Hip-hop is a living, breathing culture, so learn the history of the game before you make any more lists.
So true. And that wasn't his only mistake. A few of these are just things he didn't catch, or were just taken out of context. The one that really got me was Kanye's Flashing Lights because he didn't even get the lyrics RIGHT. “Ol-wu-wopte” is Chicago slang. It wouldn't have taken him 20 seconds to google that.
OH NO GUYS! He didn't get references to s****y music that was in more s****y music! It sounds retarded, it is retarded. Rap is retarded in general
With the exception of KRS One. This article should just be called 11 s****y artists...
Reply"But sometimes, those boasts stray into territory that seems anything but impressive. And that's good, because I've literally made a career out of making fun of them for it."
Reply...Wow, are you secretly a member of The Lonely Island? Or perhaps you are inventing a rival super-spoof group, the likes of which has never been seen! [For instance, instead of "I'm On A Boat" you can sing "I'm on a laser-mounted T-rex with rocket launchers"... although on second thoughts, if you make it too awesome, you may spoil the ironic object of the whole exercise.
I personally find that this needs more Lil Wayne lyrics, as his punchlines fall by the wayside multiple times.
ReplyDon't see the appeal of that guy on multiple levels.
To be fair, the point of that lyric in Big Brother was that just after Yay told Jay about his song with Coldplay, Jay made a song with Coldplay, which pissed off Yay cause Yay thought Jay was swaggerjacking him and they had kind of a feud. Fortunately in the end they made up and had a good cry together. Steady mobbin
Replybut they had a feud over Coldplay? Seriously they fought about f*****g coldplay?
i had erased Hanson from my mind to the point i didn't remember that stupid goddamn song, even while reading the article that f*****g song stayed repressed. then the caption. f**k you, cracked, because now it's playing full blast in my head. but only the mmbop doodely do mmbop part.
ReplyFiddy only wanted to hump chicks behind the fax machine. He has his shticks.
ReplyJ-Zone once said ... "We'll use your bathroom and then pee on the seat", Now thats hardcore!
Reply"Don't get me wrong, Coldplay is a great band provided you've never heard of Radiohead and you have no personality."
ReplyBest part of this article.
I don't know. I've heard of Radiohead but I still like music. Just because I've heard of one s****y band doesn't mean I'm going to just start hating all forms of music.
Hey Stumpy, I think the point is that if you've heard the original, there's not much point in listening to blatant, less-talented rip-offs.
I know Adam's comment wasn't meant to be taken seriously at all, but I still don't quite understand where the Coldplay/Radiohead comparisons come from. Where do people get the idea that the most naively happy band in the world, and the most depressingly miserable band in the world, are exactly the same?
ReplyThey're both ball-less Brit rock. Not that much of a stretch.
"Don't get me wrong, Coldplay is a great band provided you've never heard of Radiohead and you have no personality."
ReplyYes. YES. *bangs you*
Funny article! I have a suggestion for the least impressive boast in rap. Made by the late Eazy E it is "I might be a woman beater but I'm not a p***y eater" A quote that I think shows his thuggery up to another level. Mind you he was very young when he recorded it.
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