The often chaotic nature of rap and hip hop music makes it the perfect accompaniment for certain high energy video games. It features prominently in a lot of sports sim titles and also shows up in quite a few action oriented games as well. Every now and again though, it’s not just the music that’s included in these titles, but also the recording artists behind the tracks themselves.
Guest characters in video games have been around for decades, but were traditionally based on superheroes or other video game characters rather than real people. That all changed, however, around the turn of the century and there were plenty of famous rap and hip hop stars ready to make the leap into the digital world.
10 Snoop Dogg
Snoop has appeared in just about every type of medium imaginable over the years and has recently taken up streaming. With that in mind, it’s perhaps unsurprising to learn that he’s featured in quite a few video games as well. His first appearance came in the 2003 GTA Clone True Crime: Streets of LA, where he appears as an unlockable playable character.
The following year, he lined up alongside several other legends of the rap game in Def Jam: Fight for NY, although this time not as a character called Crow rather than as himself. He also shows up in Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Call of Duty: Ghosts and the two latest Madden games.
9 Nelly
The NBA series of video games has always been closely linked with rap music, particularly when it comes to the games’ soundtracks. Throughout the early two thousands, however, EA went through a phase of including some of the recording artists that provided music for the games as unlockable playable characters.
Nelly’s sole video game appearance came in NBA Street Vol.2, in which one of his previously unreleased tracks could also be found. He wasn’t the only famous rapper to appear in the game either, with the rest of the St. Lunatics joining him as well as several other ‘Street Legends’ that were heavily inspired by other big names from the rap game.
8 Redman
Redman has enjoyed a fairly successful acting career over the years and has featured in plenty of video games too. The first of these came in NBA 2K1 for the Sega Dreamcast, where he appears as a hidden player. He then went on to appear in all four of the main Def Jam games, both as a recording artist and a playable character.
Redman’s music has appeared prominently in a number of other video games too, with the most notable being True Crime: New York City. As with Snoop Dogg in the first True Crime game though, it’s actually possible to unlock the rapper as a playable character as well. He also provided original tracks for NBA 2K6 and is one of many rappers who are playable in the game.
7 Eminem
Despite his huge popularity over the past few decades, Eminem’s video game credits are incredibly scarce. He’s only appeared in two of them over the years, with the first being 50 Cent: Bulletproof for the PS2, Xbox and PSP. He lends both his voice and likeness to the corrupt police officer Detective McVicar and features prominently throughout the title.
His only other video game appearance came in the 2017 freemium mobile title Shady Wars, which he released in collaboration with Music Powered Games. It was a fairly simplistic affair, although did include quite a few of the artist’s most popular tracks as well as his likeness.
6 The Wu-Tang Clan
Eminem is far from the only famous rapper to release their own video game, nor was he the first. That honor goes to the Wu-Tang Clan, who in late 1999 released the 3D fighting game Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style for the original PlayStation. Perhaps surprisingly, it was actually pretty good, although it did suffer from some pretty noticeable frame rate issues.
The game puts players in the shoes of a clan of martial artists as they fight their way through New York to rescue their kidnapped master from an evil martial arts master. It’s a pretty graphic game; so much so, in fact, that players had to input a special code that was printed in the instruction manual to unlock the uncensored version.
5 50 Cent
Curtis Jackson has enjoyed a fairly successful career outside of rap, particularly when it comes to movies. He’s also had an impact on the video game industry though, having worked on two titles back in the noughties. Granted, neither 50 Cent: Bulletproof nor 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand set the world alight, although the latter did at lease receive some fairly positive reviews.
The first game sees fiddy seeking revenge against a group of hitmen who tried to murder him while its sequel is instead centered around a 50 Cent concert in the Middle East. Jackson also lent his voice to one of the Navy SEALs in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, although this was more of a cameo than a full appearance.
4 Dr. Dre
Despite what Eminem would have you believe, Dr. Dre is not dead and locked in his basement. Anyone requiring proof of this need only look as far as 50 Cent: Bulletproof. It’s a game in which the doc lends both his voice and likeness to an arms dealer named Grizz. There’s a more recent example too, for anybody who still isn’t convinced.
Many GTA Online players were surprised to find Dre in the recently released Cayo Perico heist. He’s one of four celebrities to make cameos throughout the DLC, all of whom play themselves. Sadly, however, he only shows up in the mission’s introductory cutscene despite the game teasing that he’ll be at Strickler’s party.
3 Lil Jon
The Tony Hawk’s series has had its fair share of guest skaters over the years. The majority of them have been superheroes, but there have also been one or two musicians as well. Metallica frontman James Hetfield features in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD and Jack Black makes an appearance in the recently released remakes. Lil Jon’s character predates them both though.
Given the series’ typical pop-punk aesthetic, the inclusion of an unlockable rapper seemed like a strange one to many. Regardless of this tonal dissonance, however, by typing in the password ‘hip2Dhop’ or beating the game’s story mode on Normal difficulty, players are able to unlock the former East Side Boyz rapper in all his glory.
2 Kanye West
Given Yeezy’s various business ventures over the years and his huge brand appeal, it’s perhaps a little surprising that he has so few non-musical credits on his resume. While other big rap stars have used their fame to transcend mediums, Kanye has made only a handful of movie cameos and a solitary video game appearance.
Like many other big-name rappers before him, the Konman features as a hidden character in EA’s NBA series. He lines up alongside the likes of Twista, Pitbull and The Game in the 2K10 edition and also features in the soundtrack with his song Amazing.
1 Busta Rhymes
For those too young to remember, Celebrity Deathmatch was a claymation series that ran on MTV around the turn of the century. It featured clay models of celebrities duking it out in an ultra violent fight to the death and was fairly popular at the time. As with many other popular things from that era, it didn’t take long for a video game adaptation to arrive.
Celebrity Deathmatch was released in 2003 for a number of platforms and played out much like the show itself. There were 27 celebrity fighters in total, one of which was Busta Rhymes. This isn’t the only time that the rapper has featured in a video game though, with Rhymes also showing up in two of the Def Jam games shortly after.
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