incomplete history of rap/rock collaboration fun

public enemy + anthrax – “bring the noise”
a long time ago aerosmith and run dmc worked together on a record called "walk this way", and it fucking sucked. it was meant to prove the worlds of rock and rap could combine to create something double-good! but instead anyone with any taste waited until pe and anthrax worked together on their awesome bludgeoning metal version of “bring the noise” to believe this marriage could work. chuck d generously (inexplicably) handed over the second and third verses to anthrax dude who spat it word for word. he sounds pretty good too! "walk this way" is tame and lumbering in comparison - why would run dmc want to rhyme like steven tyler anyway?? you can bet on which of these songs the weirdo from korn was taking notes.

various - judgement night s/t
obviously emilio estevez was paying attention too: just a few years later he personally invented nu metal by forcing lots of ill-matched rappers and rock bands into a cramped studio. together they created a suitably "hard-edged" soundtrack for his flop film judgement night. (if you imagine the soundtrack is telling the story of the film then emilio and his buddies are mudhoney being hounded through decaying urban city-scapes by sir mix-a-lot.)

it actually worked out very well on most of the tracks, particularly cypress hill vs sonic youth ("cypress hill are men, men who get mad baked. so baked they don't even notice when sonic youth put mad art-feedback on the start of their songs" is how jack cable explained the genius of this song) and boo yaa tribe vs faith no more ("chris patton, former lieutenant governer of hong kong and faith no more lead voxacalist, is a man, a white man. boo yaa tribe are big fat men, from samoa. when they're not playing 7-a-side rugby they like to rap, about life in the ghetto and about bustin', bustin' mad gats, mad gats of ghetto justice.......rap justice." ?!). only downer is everlast from house of pain, who gives an early indication that it's not just hiphop he has trouble performing.

blackstreet ft slash + odb - "fix"
collaborations arent required much these days now that we have a super-breed of bands like linkin park to live out these dream match-ups on every song. but still there are oddities like this underrated song from the blackstreet golden age. it's sort of awkward but who wouldn't want to hear slash's guitar bleeding along with teddy riley's crazy mouth-keyboard thing in the same song, at the same time? there's also that loud rocks album but its rubbish.

swizz beats ft. ja rule + metallica - "we did it again"
and that brings it to right now: what the hell is swizz actually doing on this record? i think if anyone actually told me i'd regret asking. i can't believe he could do such an incredible stab at post-blueprint kind of stately soul production on "good times" by styles p (what really makes it special is he takes that style and then sends it into fucking outer space!! with buzzing keyboards and fx washes) but make ja rule and metallica sound so silly and weak on this. a shame because in a lot of ways its getting back to what made judgement night good: ja rule actually tries to fit in instead of pretending like he's rhyming over a rockwilder beat. metallica actually include more than one riff, even if none of them are very good. what a waste when swizz could literally have saved music!