5 celebrities who could’ve had careers as emcees
Rap has grown into a universal language. It is one of the most popular genres of music on the planet. The vast majority of us have tried various things before settling on one or two ventures. Many of us have tried music at some point. Several well-known people have also shown glimpses that they have the potential to be good rappers and this article mentions some of them.
Shia Leboeuf
Shia started acting way back but got his big break not too long ago. He played the lead character in the first two Transformers movies. Just as his career was sky-rocketing he disappeared. Reports that he’s difficult to work with surfaced, so it’s possible that that’s why he never got much high profile work after. Who knows? Anyway a while ago I watched a clip of Shia rapping in a crowd. I didn’t believe it was really him. Then just about 2 weeks ago Shia was a guest on Sway in the Morning and he killed the 5 Fingers of Death, a segment where 5 different beats are played and the guest star has to rap to all of them to prove his skills. The young actor smashed the mic in a way that was unexpected. He showed hints that if he were a fulltime rapper he might be able to take the world by storm.
Mekhi Phifer
Mekhi Phifer has been close to the hip hop scene for a while. He has played roles in hip hop films such as 8 Mile, A Day in the Life and Carmen: A Hip Hopera. I’m convinced he has rap skill of some sort. Even if he wasn’t the writer of the songs in the aforementioned movies he has really good delivery and his voice commands the mic very well. His physical build and appearance would add to his believability as a real rapper. Or maybe he’s just really good actor who’s great at playing a rapper.
John Cena
This is a pretty obvious name to add to the list and you may wonder why he’s mentioned here because he has released a rap album with his cousin Tha Trademarc which sold more than one million copies, making it platinum. He used to diss other wrestlers through the use of his raps in his early days as a professional wrestler and he was extremely entertaining. Sadly though for the rap communicty he never pursued a career in rap and opted to continue wrestling instead. He even featured on a Murs track which had a host of other established acts such as E-40. In recent years he featured on a song with Wiz Khalifa. He seems to be pursuing acting now. Maybe someday he’ll come back to the mic and get into rap on a full time basis.
Terrence Howard
Terrence Howard played the role of a pimp who’s pursuing a career in music brilliantly in the Academy Award winning film Hustle & Flow. Although he didn’t write the songs in the movie he delivered a visual and vocal performance that blew me and many other people away. The soundtrack to the movie featured 3 songs on which Terrence actually rapped. Some years later the hit TV show Empire came out and guess who got the lead role of music mogul and rapper…that’s right Terrence. He has since appeared on several songs which have been featured on the show and have been released to the public including one of the show’s most successful tracks Boom! Boom! Boom! He would not have pulled off the role if he was not believable as a rapper.
Omar Epps
I first came across Omar Epps rapping in the Stick Fingaz movie A Day in the Life. The movie itself is not that great from a production perspective. However, the music is very well selected and the lyrics very well-written. The dialogue in the entire movie is rapped so that’s something that should fascinate hip hop heads who are not familiar with the 2009 film. One performance that stands out the most in the film is that of the character played by Omar Epps. He shows up in a scene or two in which he totally steals the show. His voice has a laidback but very masculine character. His pronunciation of words is clear and on point. He also has a look which can easily pass for a street rapper. Omar did release one project in the mid 2000s but it seems he never pursued the music career very far.
