Best & Worst Lists
The 20 Most Embarrassing Sellout Moments In Hip-Hop History
Get used to it kids. With music sales in a slump, it’s only a matter of time before your favorite rapper turns into a spokesperson for some corporate entity, or the star of some horrible direct-to-video horror film. We present to you, the most embarrassing sellout moments in hip-hop history.
20. Christopher “Kid” Reid Emerges From 15 Year Absence With Suit Commercial: Sans ‘fro, Kid shows us exactly why his acting career has not been quite as prolific as his other endeavors.
19. Lil Flip Does Commercial For Garage Sale Company: These dudes have to be some of the worst “rappers” we’ve ever seen. Flip should have just saved face and suggested he do the entire commercial himself.
18. Black Eyed Peas For Sale: Prior to Fergie joining the Black Eyed Peas, the group was actually making decent music with their first two records, acting like a modern answer to the Native Tongues. Once Fergie became a full on member, we began to see them in ads for everything from the NBA, Doritos, Itunes, DirecTV, Pepsi, and more. SNL nailed this, in the above sketch.
17. DMX, Actor: We guess the worst thing about X’s short lived acting career is that in virtually every movie he plays DMX.
16. Drake Peddles Sprite – Wait, we thought he was on a 24 hour, champagne diet. For a guy that came from an acting background, you wouldn’t know it from this commercial. And don’t get us started on the “transformation” he undergoes. Wack.
15. Beanie Sigel Gets His Own Line of Pro Keds – Nike, we get. Reebok, we get. But if you had to rock Pro Keds in 7th grade, you weren’t proud of it. Just like how Sigel felt when he had to face the reality that he was a b-list rapper signing a shoe-deal with a b-list company.
14. The Dr.’s Advocate: This is a far cry from when Dre would produce a fridge full of 40 oz’s for his block party. Now he stocks all of his parties with Dr. Pepper, which he talks about like it’s whiskey. Detox for real.
13. M.O.P. Collaborates With L.F.O: There’s no end to the list of questionable collaborations between rappers and other artists, but this, by far, takes the cake. Here, the Mash Out Posse teams up with the Light Funky Ones (yes, really) for this soft-rock meets hardcore hip-hop team up. Adding insult to injury, the song was called “Life is Good”, featuring the boy band singing about how great their lives are. Oh, if they only lived in Brownsville.
12. Leprechaun In The Hood: Heads cried afoul when “the cop killer” Ice-T took on a regular role on Law & Order: SVU. As. A. Cop. But as time would progress we’d see this as a natural fit for him as an actor. Leprechaun In The Hood is another story. Coolio also stars. See if you can make it to the end. Not to be confused with this.
11. Rap Snacks: Here’s a phenomenon we never understood. Various rappers putting their faces on bags of chips that certainly were not all that. Where is the connection between hip-hop and snack foods? Rap and alcohol, sure. Rap and drugs, of course. But who raps about the sweet delicious taste of vinegar and onion? We like how O.D.B.’s bag has the caption “Think Responsibly”.
10. Ice Cube Allows Sega To Put Rings Around His Head: We’re not mad at celebrity endorsements by any stretch of the imagination, but what the fuck is happening in the above advert? And see look, they made a little pun “Head For Saturn”. LOL!
9. M.C. Hammer Prefers Taco Bell Over Burgers: While Hammer selling out is nothing new, there was a short period of time when people actually took him seriously. But by the time this Taco Bell commercial hit, it was clear that he was long gone. In the above clip, Hammer and his friend with the unique haircut dis hamburgers with street attitude, and decide to make a run for the border. Then, Hammer is mobbed by fans to the tune of “Yo Sweetness”, but thankfully his multipurpose, trademark baggy pants save the day. Not Proper. We guess it’s not as bad as patriotic post-9/11 LP, Active Duty.
8. Common Teams Up With PETA: Pamela Anderson, we understand: she’s an idiot. But Com? Doesn’t he know the sheer amount of negative, hypocritical and frankly scary shit PETA members are associated with? Penn & Teller covered this at length in an episode of Bullshit. We understand he’s a vegetarian, but surely there are better organizations to back than these wack jobs.
7. The Pharcyde Backs Brian Austin Green’s Rap Career: Remember those episodes of (the original) Beverly Hills 90210, when Brian Austin Green would bust out rapping for all of his fellow rich, privileged students? No? Well it happened. Anyway, turns out this dude was dead serious like Das Efx, and actually got SlimKid3 of The Pharcyde to produce his entire rap LP. Rated 1.5 stars at All Music, caling it “pallid, uninspired, and insufferably arrogant, with no acknowledgment that its very existence rests solely on Green’s limited success as a secondary actor on a fading prime-time drama.” Ouch. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to use those tracks for a third Pharcyde album on Delicious Vinyl.
6. Redman & Method Man Give Acting A Try: Make no mistake, Redman and Method Man are great rappers, but as actors, not so much. Assigning them to comedy gold such as How High: The Movie and Red & Meth: The Sitcom, sounded the death knell for their credibility in the eyes of hardcore hip-hop heads. But it all came to a head when the duo did an ad together for Right Guard, suggesting their careers as actors smelled funky from the start. Whateva men.
5. Big Daddy Kane Appears Semi-Nude In Madonna’s Sex – No, Kane! Keep in mind that this was in the 90′s, an era where if you were rapper and did anything besides rap, you were considered a sellout. So take that knowledge and apply it to Kane appearing in Madonna’s erotic photobook, Sex, and then combine it with a lousy record, Prince of Darkness, and the coffin was sealed. The only other rapper to appear in Madonna’s book was……….. Vanilla Ice.
4. Snoop Dogg Pushes AOL – Rapper / accused murderer Snoop Dogg has made a career on using himself or his likeness to endorse everything from sneakers to beer to pet toys. And it’s fine, we’ve grown used to seeing the former Rolling 20 Crips member getting paid by any means necessary. However the worst of all of these was Snoop’s appearance in a commercial for perhaps the worst of all evil corporate entities, AOL. Here, he stands beside Ben Stiller’s pops and some generic cackling cardboard cutout white people in attempt to promote the company’s new 9.0 version. The truth is, nobody saw the horrible aftermath to this commercial. During the unaired second part of it, in his anger, Snoop Dogg killed everyone in the room.
3. Run DMC does an ad for The Gap. No, this is all wrong. Run DMC do not wear sweaters from The Gap, they wear tougher than leather jackets and Adidas on their feet. This stung almost as bad as the Crown Royal LP.
2. Flava Flav in “Flavor Of Love” – Poor Chuck D. All that hard work he did in the 90′s with Public Enemy about educating Black youth undone by his partner Flava Flav with his VH1 reality show. Sure, Flav’s always been one to dress extremely as he does in this show, but this is only one step away from the “Burn Hollywood Burn” video. Shame.
1. Ice Cube in “Are We There Yet” – He went from “The N**** You Love To Hate” to “The N**** That White People Love!” In perhaps the worst sellout moment of all time, the once feared, intimidating Ice Cube of the 90′s entered the new millennium by becoming victim to two crafty little kids with the trap-setting prowess of Kevin from Home Alone. The end result is Cube fighting with a deer, screaming into the camera, and falling down a lot while the kids chuckle repeatedly. Unfortunately, they were the only ones laughing. This hit us below the belt.
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Maybe I don’t know enough of the dirt on PETA but I’d think Com pushing Escalades is worse than him pushing veggie burgers.
Maybe two of these 20 could be considered selling out. The rest are called being a smart business person. Whats wrong with rappers using their 15 minutes of fame outside of the music. They almost have to in order to eat since nobody buys records anymore, or even back then. You act like rap isn’t mainstream. If hiphopsite could afford to advertise on MTV or BET I am sure it would. If you ask me selling out is having a song with Soulja boy on the front of your homepage. Should make the list have 21 moments now.
lol i don’t know if Are We There Yet is the most sell out moment, but its defintiely the funniest
Flav is #2? Somebody replay his skit from “Burn Hollywood Burn”.
Common once lamented that hip-hop had sold out – “But once the man got you well he altered the native. Told her if she got an image and a gimmick, that she could make money, and she did it like a dummy. Now I see her in commercials, she’s universal, she used to only swing it with the inner-city circle.”
Then he went on to do soda commercials and car commercials. His selling out is more egregious than say Ice Cube or Snoop (who were in it for the money from the start).
However, I do not think that supporting PETA (which by the way – fuck PETA) is “selling out.” While it is a horrendous organization that I vigorously disagree with, they are a non-profit and probably did not pay Common anything. I think you actually have to make money to qualify as a sell-out. Besides taking a principled stance is not selling out.
The only way appearing in a PETA commercial would be selling out is if you did not believe in their message and just did it to improve your own image (e.g., Michael Vick makes a PSA about dog fighting).
Common sells fuck all records now so he gotta do something. I read that he made 10 million dollars last year. He is more ‘successful’ now than ever. Shame he also sucks now too.
Ice Cube has always been a sell out really. He lied about everything from day one and he is a lousy actor. Ice-T is a lousy actor too, but at least you can have a laugh watching, no matter how unintentional the humour is. Plus he made a film with Abel Ferrara. That’s gotta count for something ;-) Although supposedly 50 Cent is also making a film with him too, where he plays–get this–Hyde to Forest Whitaker’s Jeckyl in an upcoming contemporary spin on the classic set in modern day N.Y. Hard to believe, but apparently it’s true.
The other decisions are nothing really. just bad ideas. How High wasn’t that bad though, even if the sitcom was, but that Saturn poster with Cube is funny as hell. No wonder that console bombed in the U.S. LOL
the irony of BEP’s going commercial is that they actually sounded more original as a mainstream pop-rap crossover act than they did as hip-hop. Is that a first? I can’t think of any other example right now. Usually what happens is that an artist or group waters down their style for mass consumption or jumps on whatever trend is going. I’m not saying that Elephunk or whatever the fuck it was called was a good record by any stretch, but it didn’t sound like every other joint out there in 2003/2004.
man, you guys were nice on this list. There were many worse sellout moments in hip-hop.
That Hammer ish was/is hilarious!!!
any find it funny that the SNL skit has BEP singing about Bar Mitzvahs and then they do a song where the chorus actually includes the phrase “Mazeltov”…holy shit, that’s sad…
What, no YJ Stinger?
wait.. Common collaborating with the Jonas Brothers isnt on the list??
This whole list is garbage. The concept of “selling out” doesn’t hold weight anymore. Call someone a sell out and it won’t do anything. Pretty much all rap artists have sold out in one way or another anyway. Whether musically or otherwise. Who gives a shit if a rapper pushes a product? They’re all trying to sell us their clothing line anyway.
Having said that the biggest sell outs ever are Black Eyed Peas. But they’re getting paid and having fun (so it seems) so who gives a shit anymore.
I remember an issue of the Source where Kane addresses the SEX book and anybody who said he went out.
“If sticking my finger in $6million dollars worth of pussy is ‘selling out’, then I’m selling out every fuckin’ day! I’m waiting for this phone to ring with them saying, “Yo, Kane–we got $7million dollars worth of pussy to stick your finger in this time!”
I hope for his sake that he still has some of that money!
Ice Cube.
AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted?
AmeriKKKa’s Most Sold.
Ice Cube just got a new number 1: Are We There Yet? the SERIES on TBS… Fuck, he used to be real…
Snoop dogg N01
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwE-SLnLkqY
The ad with Christopher “Kid” Reid looked pretty satirical and like he was having fun with it. You kinda tried to warp it into something it was not. This whole topic and list is pretty unoriginal
I know hes not a rapper but i saw an infomercial with MR. T pushing a Flavorwave oven. I watched the whole thing; could not turn away for a moment… god i love it when a plan come together..
How could you guys forget when Common, Fat Joe etc got their Power Ranger on?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdrnqRKNJSo
Why the fuck are people spelling ‘niggas’ as ‘niqqas’? You fucking illiterate cunts.
To the racist motherfucker that wrote this article…
What’s up you piece of shit?
So a rapper is considered a sell out when he has white fans?
And with the last one you’re saying that all WHITE people love the same thing?
A lame kids’ movie?
FUCK you.
http://1800mb.com/download-convert/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmp3drug.com%2Fget.php%3F4892-6890212-8e97d1b830d6-ce6a7707cfed81666914f84767a9443e%26title%3DAtban_Klann_-_Puddles_Of_H2O.mp3
this was before fergie join them fuck dat other shit BEP was better before fergie
Snoop Dogg doing a song with Big Time Rush is THE Number 1 Sellout of All Time.
Ice Cube is so white now he makes Steve Urkel look like the leader of the Black Panthers! Ice Cubes hood pass was taken away from him and givin to Justin Bieber.
How is puff daddy not on this list? He created the girl group “Dream”. That should be number 1.
yea, sad. esp red & methodman. Seems like gen y don’t care if their rapper’s head’s stupidly poking out from a chip packet. I’m gen y. lol.
How did Ice Cube sell out? Because he isn’t promoting violence? I always thought selling out had to do with selling out your own race. I don’t see how making a movie starring black children about connecting as a black family is selling out. Sure he is far from the gangsta rapper he started off as, but he’s done a great job at showing youth how to mature into an adult. He’s been married to a black woman since ’92 and is very involved in his children’s life. That’s something we don’t see a lot in media and in the real world. Not to mention he’s given a lot of black actors their first shot. Much respect Ice Cube.