Playing unedited rap music during ring walkouts in the late ’80s and early ’90s was frowned upon. I think he represents the kind of person who was completely misunderstood by a certain audience because they didn’t understand hip-hop. He would show up on mixtapes, SMACK DVDs. I opened the book with him because I think he most brilliantly demonstrates this person who was misunderstood because he was from Brooklyn, and he repped Brooklyn like a hip-hop artist would. They called him the ‘king of bling.’ He was in all the rap videos from Shyne to Lil’ Kim and Jay-Z. I think he was the first boxer who was completely wrapped up in a hip-hop ethos. I opened the book with Zab Judah for a very specific reason. He got his fame from being a video groupie.’ That sounds like Suge Knight’s quote from the Source Awards where he went at Puff Daddy and Bad Boy. I got my fame from putting fighters on their back pocket, and putting them on their face, and racking up - that’s how I got my fame. They’re always going to look to rhyming as a way out.įloyd Mayweather ahead of a fight with Zab Judah back in the early 2000s said, ‘I love hip-hop, and I love R&B, and I love rap artists, but I’m a little different from Zab Judah. But I would still argue that as long as there are still people growing up in the streets and tough circumstances, they’re always going to look to boxing as a way out. The way this was all happening at once and how it tied the two cultures together, it might be a different story if it happened today. When Mike Tyson’s career took off, hip-hop was just entering its golden era. ‘ Rapper’s Delight‘ has a Muhammad Ali reference. Looking at early hip-hop songs like ‘ The Message,’ it’s got a Sugar Ray Leonard reference.
A wave of early hip-hop stars created the genre that was mixing in boxing from the jump. They both argued that one of the reasons these cultures are connected is that your hip-hop heroes from the early era grew up with Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, ‘Hands of Stone.’ All that stuff was what their dads and uncles were watching. I remember Inspectah Deck from Wu-Tang and R.A. How do you think the marriage of boxing and hip-hop would be different if hip-hop as a genre were invented today?įloyd Mayweather (left) hits Zab Judah (right) with a left to the back of the head during the welterweight championship fight at Thomas & Mack Center on April 8, 2006, in Las Vegas. One of the things I said in the book is that I feel like a lot of the announcers and folks in boxing media miss all the hip-hop stuff because they don’t come from hip-hop culture. Often, when you see those innovative things that mix cultures and skew young, the old heads of boxing are not a fan of that. Current day, you see what Triller is doing and what Verzuz is doing, incorporating boxing elements. HBO had KO Nation, which Ed Lover from Yo! MTV Raps hosted. Cedric Kushner had this ThunderBox show that brought rappers to perform in the ring before fights. But there have always been these hip-hop shows. You write that an argument can be made, due to the number of boxing references and how so many boxers are held in high regard, that hip-hop is preserving boxing history.īoxing has trouble with the youth market. Hip-hop romanticizes boxing in a way that’s fascinating. They did a song called ‘ M.G.M.’ They re-imagine a rematch between Julio Chavez and Pernell Whitaker and a controversial draw that never took place. I think a cool example is Wu-Tang Clan and their album Wu-Tang Forever. Hip-hop also does this cool thing where it does harken back to boxing history a great deal.
So, you know, we have a lot of current boxing stuff showing up in hip-hop lyrics. But if you listen to Griselda, they’re out there talking about Gervonta Davis, and they’re talking about Deontay Wilder, they’re talking about the boxers who are now. Hip-hop still loves boxing, maybe now more than ever. The popularity of boxing has diminished significantly in America, but it remains ever-present in hip-hop culture and lyrics. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Snyder, a professor of rhetoric, writing and oral communication at Siena College, near Albany, New York, spoke with The Undefeated about the relationship between Tyson and Shakur, the early apprehensions about rap music on fight night, and why he opened the book with Zab Judah.
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