The often chaotic nature of rap and hip hop music makes it the perfect accompaniment for certainhigh energy video games. It features prominently in a lot of sports sim titles and also shows up in quite a fewaction oriented gamesas 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.
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Guest characters in video games have been around for decades, but weretraditionally based on superheroes or other video game charactersrather 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.
10Snoop Dogg
Snoop has appeared in just about every type of medium imaginable over the years andhas 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 2003GTACloneTrue 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 inDef Jam: Fight for NY, although this time not as a character called Crow rather than as himself. He also shows up inTekken Tag Tournament 2,Call of Duty: Ghostsand the two latestMaddengames.
9Nelly
TheNBAseries 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 inNBA 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.
8Redman
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 inNBA 2K1for the Sega Dreamcast, where he appears as a hidden player. He then went on to appear inall four of the mainDef Jamgames, both as a recording artist and a playable character.
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Redman’s music has appeared prominently in a number of other video games too, with the most notable beingTrue Crime: New York City. As with Snoop Dogg in the firstTrue Crimegame though, it’s actually possible to unlock the rapper as a playable character as well. He also provided original tracks forNBA 2K6and is one of many rappers who are playable in the game.
7Eminem
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 being50 Cent: Bulletprooffor 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 titleShady 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.
6The 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 gameWu-Tang: Shaolin Stylefor 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.
550 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, neither50 Cent: Bulletproofnor50 Cent: Blood on the Sandset the world alight, although the latter did at lease receive some fairly positive reviews.
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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 inCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, although this wasmore of a cameo than a full appearance.
4Dr. 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 as50 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.
ManyGTA Onlineplayers were surprised to find Dre inthe 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.
3Lil Jon
TheTony Hawk’sseries 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 inTony Hawk’s Pro Skater HDandJack 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.
2Kanye 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’sNBAseries. 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.
1Busta Rhymes
For those too young to remember,Celebrity Deathmatchwas 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 Deathmatchwas 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 theDef Jamgames shortly after.
