If you are an unknown band looking for exposure, I’m pretty sure all you need to do is cover a rap song. If you can work out an acoustic or bluegrass version, you’re bound to get people playing it at parties and dumb ass bloggers like me posting mp3′s on their sites. You might even score yourself a hit. Remember Dynamite Hack?
If you are too much of a purist to get suckered in to these shameless cover songs, I offer a challenge. At your next party, get your friends all liquored up and put on “Gin and Juice” by the Gourds. I guarantee that it will end up playing on repeat and things will get weird.
And yes, I know Fergie and JT don’t qualify as rap, but I had to get to 10 tracks somehow.
1. The Gourds – Gin and Juice (Snoop Dogg)
2. Rock Plaza Central – SexyBack (Justin Timberlake)
3. Travis Morrison – What’s Your Fantasy? (Ludacris)
4. Nina Gordon – Straight Outta Compton (NWA)
5. Jill Sobule – Hot in Herre (Nelly)
6. Port O’Brien – My Humps (Fergie)
7. Brent Runyan – Bring the Noise (Public Enemy)
8. Jonathan Coultan – Baby Got Back (Sir Mix-a-Lot)
9. Kooks – Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)
10. Dynamite Hack – Boyz in the Hood (NWA)
Honorable Mention:
Ben Folds Five – Bitches ain’t Shit (Dr. Dre)
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thanx, really amazing list. Anya Marina sick cover!!!
dynamite hack owns this list. All the rest pretty much suck for the exception of the gourds remake.
99 Problems – Hugo
Crazy, My Humps, and Sexy Back aren’t rap songs. Come on guys.
Agree with Susi.
99 Problems – Hugo.
Brilliant cover, dare I say it’s better than the original?
Only one of these works now. :’(
I’ve got some acoustic covers of Jay Z and Afroman on my youtube channel. Kinda done in a different style. I’m pretty awesome so you should probably check it out. Also I agree that Hugo 99 Problems is up there with the best.
http://www.youtube.com/verniekq04
Whoa obviously you haven’t heard Cyclone by Ernie Halter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ab7CHLSKRc
BTW, Jonathan Coulton’s name is misspelled.
justin timberlake, nelly, and fergie arent rappers, man you guys are white
I Want You Back – The Civil Wars (The Jackson 5)
How is BF5′s Bitches Ain’t Shit an Honourable Mention??? The Gourds cover is good, but BF5 is way better. And to Giulia: In what world are Jackson 5 rappers??? Black people sing other kinds of music, too.
How are Crazy and Sexyback rap songs? Fergie is a singer not a rapper but ok. A better title would be Top 10 Indie Covers of Non-Indie Random Songs
you cant say hugos 99 problems is an actual cover he only use the hook that would mean that everytime a rap song used a sample it would be called a cover which is not a correct statement by any means because they are typically used due to the artist not having any better original ideas of there own at best hes the kanye of indie music sooooooo with that being said its not a cover just a song with a sample
and agreed with GBL2 on the corrected title
Not much actual rap on this list. Here is one of the first covers of a rap: Irish folk-rock singer Luka Bloom doing a cover of LL Cool J’s “I Need Love”
http://youtu.be/zij70PCyBck
A little different, but I like how Bloom uses his guitar to make the hook.
Here are a few of my hip hop covers. Check ‘em out!
Eminem – Cleanin out My Closet – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps1k8iWOt4Y
Kanye West – Golddigger – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mlLF4mnlro
Drake – Forever – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsR5wI13NI
This crap is just the 21st century version of blackface. If there’s a hell below, I hope there’s a fiery pit reserved for white hipsters who do “ironic” acoustic covers of rap songs.
This list is shit, you didn’t even bother to look. There are even non rap songs up there wtf, and I only looked up this article to see if there was a better cover of a hip hop/rap song than Anya Marinas cover of T.I. and guess what? Anya Marina still shits all over your picks.
I’m SO god damn sick of people doing these covers. I’m sorry but what’s novel about it anymore? Anything?
Really, you had to struggle to ten?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE9IchvpOPk
Sorry that’s Milow’s cover of Ayo Technology, and it’s pretty solid.
tame impala – prototype! (outkast)
A better title: “Hipster Racists Make Black Music into Muzak
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