“Men in Black” had set a new standard for rap-up songs that soon proved unreasonable. Granted, “Men in Black” is a much better song (or at least has a better hook), but it was also attached to a much bigger and better movie and sung by the biggest star in the world at the time. The factors that contributed to its rise were almost impossible to replicate.
Deep blue seaThe producers of tried a little too hard to copy it. They gave a well-known rapper a starring role and asked him to write a literal rap song about the summer blockbuster he was starring in. The song was too close to that of Men in Black and never managed to be what it was supposed to be: a bit of entertaining ridiculousness over a ridiculously entertaining movie. Instead, it became a martyr to the entire rap-up song concept – buried so deep in the digital ocean that you can’t even find it on LL Cool J’s YouTube channel or official Spotify sources.
And it wasn’t just LL Cool J. Smith’s follow-up to Men in Black (Wild Wild West) was a hit in its own right, but it was a hit associated with a historic flop of a film. It had the best bits about that flop (well, that and those incredible Burger King-themed sunglasses), but that film, too, was meant to replicate a singular sensation and didn’t quite manage it in the same way. Smith soon dropped the rap-up part of his star power package, and many movie studios stopped looking for rap-up artists altogether, as the ceiling had clearly been reached.
Smith didn’t kill the rap-up song, though, and neither did LL Cool J. No, you have to chalk that killing up to time itself and changes in the industry that meant movie studios no longer had as much ownership of music studios or otherwise didn’t promote their films and artists in the same way. It’s an industry shift that also led to the relative demise of the tie-in single song: a once-stalwart institution that’s limited to just a handful of films these days.
As for the rap-up, it remains in our hearts and on the fringes of the industry. Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” from 8 mile could be considered the artistic pinnacle of the concept, but even it did not lead to a widespread revival. When you hear a rap-up song today, it is usually a parody or homage to the golden age of the concept, as seen in films such as Psycho Goreman. It still exists, but there is a sense of shame attached to it that suggests it must be chased away with irony.
But to be honest, I miss the rap-up songs. Maybe not exactly as they were, but more in the way they embodied a time when movies were more than just content; they could spark seismic cultural shifts that impacted multiple mediums. They celebrated the fun of the moviegoing experience in a way that sometimes seems hard to find these days. If we’re engineering the issue backwards, perhaps any longing for rap-up songs is more a longing for the films they were often attached to. In the self-serious age of dramatic reboots and franchises treated like precious objects, the idea of treating a film as such a pure piece of entertainment that it comes with its own rap song feels downright magical.
