Be a Man

Chuck D spoke at MTSU recently, and I read in the campus newspaper that he said something along the lines of "The current state of rap is sorry. Kids are sitting at home listening to this stuff and thinking, I can do this, and they're right."

Macho Man Randy Savage's Be a Man is the album that proves Chuck right.

Anyone can make a rap album. Anyone.

Take one out of work wrestler with a reasonable amount of celebrity, mix with semi-talented writers and producers, stir in a song challenging another 80s wrestler and one in honor of a dead one, and shake. Out pops this album.

This is quite possibly the most craptacular thing ever produced by man. Never before have the worlds of rap and wrestling been merged into a seamless whole such as this.

There were glimmers of such a thing in Hulk Hogan's 1995 Hulk Rules album, where the Hulkster laid down some fresh rhymes, and NWA-TNA wrestler Ron "tha Truth" Killings is a rapper who has put out a few albums, but nothing in comparison to this.

Nothing.

I think they missed out on something by not cursing more. Just the new horizons for rhyming words ending in "-it" would have added alot to the songs, rather than relying on "That's the slogan" being used more than once.

After listening to this album the 14 times that is legally required for writing a review I have a few questions for Randy. In one song he talks about how he won't cheat on his lady because she's stuck by him, but in another he talks about how they're wanting to have some fun with ladies at the club. Which is it Macho?

Of course he didn't actually write any of the lyrics.

Macho Man is credited as a co-writer on only one track, the titular "Be a Man," where the chorus chants:

"Be a man Hulk,
Come on don't be scurred,
You're runnin from Macho
That's what I heard."

The rest of the album is credited to K. Keene and a few others. Either Keene isn't a very good lyricist, or he's saving his better rhymes for himself or somebody that might be a bit higher profile, but the rhymes here are some slaw.

You'd almost start thinking that I don't like it, wouldn't you?

Not hardly.

This is the greatest album ever produced. Ever.

The RIAA is worrying that file sharing will kill the record industry, that's bull. This will kill it. After hearing this album everyone will be so crestfallen by it's brilliance that they will not be able to continue on. In the future there will only be a succession of Macho Man albums, all rappers and producers will only be able to hope to one day work for him.

All hail Macho.

'Cause Randy don't play. Oh Yeah!