Rap Jam, Volume One
We'll send you a new Rap Jam every month, no obligation, cancel anytime
written by Bill on June 7, 2025

In 1994, a new upstart publisher called Motown Games was looking to fill a niche in the audience of video gamers, a fertile market that wasn't being fully targeted. Can you guess which market that was? Go on, guess. Motown Games. Guess.

No...

Cute, but no, keep going.

No, no, you're thinking too literally. Come on.

You win! Although I prefer the enigmatic smile and tasteful pasties of the Mona Lil' Kim. Yes, Motown Games, so named just to make clear that they don't publish Pearly McPale's Snowy White Adventure, was determined to tap into the valuable and underappreciated black market. And not the kind you buy kidneys from. They needed to create a game that mixed black culture with a proven and popular gaming trend, so as to prove irresistable to an audience waiting to be pandered to. As any random viewing of BET will tell you, rap music is the sole accomplishment of African-American culture of the past 200 years, so we've got that half covered. But what gaming trend to pick?

A trip to the mall was in order. Upon inspection of an average arcade in 1994, one took notice of a few things: There's a regular stream of players to the Mortal Kombat machine. On the other side of the room, there's a regular stream of players to the NBA Jam machine. In the middle, towards the back near Hard Drivin', there's that damn big screened Samurai Shodown machine that every arcade was legally required to have despite no one playing it except for that one nerdy guy who would, years later, spend $1200 on his own Neo Geo machine and tell everyone how much better it is than whatever system is currently out. To your left is the merchandise counter, where 25,000 tickets can be exchanged for a Golden Girls pencil box. It's dark here. You're likely to be eaten by a grue.

Despite promising plans of a four-armed Suge Knight filling the Goro role, the Mortal Kombat method might limit your audience. On the other hand, everybody likes sports! And all black people play basketball, right? So it came to be that Rap Jam, Volume One was born unto this world. One must admire their confidence that this game was going to be so great that they'd better install a simple numbering system early on.

The concept behind Rap Jam is simple. Choose from a roster of hip hop stars and jam your way into the big leagues, taking on increasingly tougher opponents in various championships around the country for cash rewards that mean nothing and extra bonuses like "basketball endorsement deal" or "appear in a rap video." Okay, actually the concept doesn't make any damned sense. I don't think LL Cool J needs to play ball in dirty back lots using baskets nailed to telephone poles for a couple extra grand. ..Well, he didn't then. And I'm pretty sure getting into a rap video wasn't a concern either. It's not even like they said star in a video; they said "appear" in a video. That's what they tell chumps who win walk on roles in TV shows via contests on Snickers wrappers. Everlast better train his best so he can win the tournament and be one of the 500 people in the background of a party in a Snoop Dogg video.

Speaking of which, let's take a look at who we've got to work with. Keep in mind that in 1994, I was still listening to adult contemporary and the occasional top 40/dance station, meaning while everyone else was drinking gin and juice, I was coming undone and seeing the sign and learning about rhythm and its abilities as a dancer. And seeing as how Rap Jam is entirely lacking in a playable C+C Music Factory character, that means I'm going to be completely talking out of my ass here.

	First up is Naughty By Nature, a trio from New Jersey most famous for songs like OPP and Hip Hop Hooray, aka The Rap Song Even Your Grandma Waves Her Hands To. There's only one member of the group actually in the game -- if you choose to have CPU teammates, the slots are filled by random nerds with names like Steve and Jeff -- and I'd endeavor to find out which member that is if it made any damned difference. Much like the "money" you earn, the choice of rapper seems to be just so you can roleplay in your mind as him or her. In actuality, every male is represented in the game by Tupac Shakur on a hunger strike.
	Providing a crushing blow to the game's credibility at the outset is Coolio, doing his best to look stoned out of his gourd. Remember that Dangerous Minds came out in 1995, so this is the pre-Gangsta's Paradise Coolio, which is news to me because I wasn't aware there was such a thing. I'm informed by Amazon customer reviews that this was before he "sold out", back when a head like a PlayDoh Wiggle Worm Factory could command some respect. I tried to search for some more information about him to more accurately detail his involvement here, but I saw this story on Coolio and Ed McMahon on a cooking show and then my nose started bleeding.
	Daring to wear something other than black is the floating head of Queen Latifah, who is really better at basketball than you'd imagine something without arms being. She actually looks like she could be the boss at the end of a level in Gradius, where she'd float around and occasionally her jaw would slide open like she's about to swallow a mouse and then she'd fire a 50-foot wide laser beam at you and your two dozen missile/laser/shield/wok upgrades. But I digress. Queen Latifah was a rapper and a woman. She's now, of course, better known as an actress and a singer who steals album covers from Harry Conick Jr. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts, only half of her could make it to the game. Is she wearing heels?
	Man, I don't remember this part of Tom Smothers' act at all. No, I kid, it's actually rapper and world-famous cellist Yoyo! She's taken time away from being a small Asian man to become a lazy-eyed, gold-painted b-ball all-star with a plate of spaghetti on her head. Her biography explains that she was a rapper with a message, especially for young women, making her just like every other damned female rapper or group out there. The male rappers came out to tell all women to get on their knees and start sucking cock like there's candy inside and the women have to come in after and say "yo yo we're also very rich and bad and from the streets but oh by the way you probably shouldn't suck all that dick." They should've all just collaborated on one big album called Don't Be Fucking Retarded and they'd be done with it.
	The Gorton's Fisherman is back and he's wearing those oversized novelty glasses you put on babies when you have no sense of humor in Public Enemy. Really, what can be done to mock Flavor Flav that he hasn't already done himself. Nowadays he just looks like a homeless man people have been hanging things on and now he's become an attraction for it. "Oooh, don't steal m'clock! I needs it for breakfast!" Bad news to anyone looking forward to fluid animated clock-necklace dynamics: Guess what Flav looks like in-game. That's right. These people just didn't care.
	Token white guy Everlast represents House of Pain, looking more muscled than he ever could in real life and currently passing a boa constrictor through his forehead. Beat him on the court quick before he gains 30 pounds and starts singing to you about how bad you should feel that other people have problems. The part of Everlast in-game is played by Gomer Pyle in And 1 knock-offs and a coonskin hat. I think they really captured his essence there.
	Look, it's Warren G! Quick, somebody tell me who that is! And then tell me why he looks like a Moai statue! Seriously, I have no idea who this guy is, but I finally have an answer at the ready if I ever need something to rhyme with "orangey", so I thank him.
	Here's some hip hop trivia: LL Cool J really stands for Ladies Love the Cool Jerk. Not a lot of people know that. I don't mind a cool jerk myself every once in a while. With a pot on his head like Johnny Appleseed and mouth agape, just waiting for someone to add in a word balloon that says "I LIKE PANTS", LL clearly didn't express in his contract that he had to keep a certain amount of dignity. But he's one of the few who actually manages to not be yellower than Bart Simpson, so I guess it's a give and take thing.
	AH HOLY SHIT BARAKA Oh, I see, it's just that guy from Onyx. I don't really know anything about them, but I know that that guy is seriously pissed off at something and I guess that's all I need to know. They had a big hit with their 1993 debut, Bacdafucup, and I have to admit the first time I saw that title I thought it said Buttafuoco. I'm so very white. Now I keep reading it as Buttercup. Two of the members of Onyx have tried their hands at acting, leading to Sticky Fingas' big break as That Yellow Bastard, but the group did come together again for the creatively titled Bacdafucup Pt II in 2002. Fun fact: Bacdafucup Pt II has a "clean" edited version. I'm still not sure how that's possible. If nothing else, Sticky's disturbing mug makes for a useful forum emoticon.

So that's our cast, such as it is. Time for the tournament proper. Every round is pratically the same with just some change in backgrounds, so I won't bother to break them all down. But I'll lay out the general strategy. Choose whichever character you want: it makes little to no difference, other than you can pick the women if playing as a stickbug with large produce stuck in its shirt turns you on. You start out in Chicago, playing on top of a skyscraper with a big CHICAGO sign on it just in case you forget where you are, with a "whooOOOOooOOOSSHH" wind sound effect playing every 2 seconds just in case you forget what Chicago is known for. Deep dish pizza. Hope you like that sound, because in a game about rappers published by a company named after Motown it only made sense for there to be absolutely no music except one generic song over the menus.

You're up against the "B-Ballers." You walk out to meet your opponent on the field of battle..

But this'll have to be a quick game because he's got to go get his braces tightened at 3:00. And then they're going to his stupid sister's birthday party, gag me.

Yes, your hardcore rapper of choice has decided to hone his skills by enrolling in the pee wee tournament. That may sound a little unfair, but just remember: He may be an 80 pound 10 year-old, but.. you're a six-foot tall grown man. So.. you see. Reason to fear on both sides.

Strangely enough, the match here doesn't differ much from later ones. The opponents get faster, and aim a little better, but the general plan stays the same. So this match serves as a good training ground for the tactics you'll be applying throughout the game. If you want to call them tactics. You just need to remember a few rules.

• The basketball goes in the hoop.
• The basketball goes in your hoop. The CPU does tend to forget this on occasion, and will helpfully dunk a ball bouncing on the rim.
• A 4-foot nothing kid can dunk on a regulation height basket.
• You are competing with magic pixie children.
• Standard laws do not apply to pixie children. Beat them savagely.

I was always a shover in NBA Jam. I don't know if that's how anyone else played it, and I know that's not how they do it in real basketball, but it just seemed the easiest way to get the ball. This works in Rap Jam too, but I don't know if you can call it shoving. It looks more like a flying elbow to the face, but boy does it work, as I guess you'd imagine an elbow jammed into someone's eye would. It can't be blocked and it can't be stopped, meaning your all your hot b-ball skills give way to just running up to a child and repeatedly punching him in the face until he gives you the ball. The only thing more shameful than knowing you just beat a child to win at basketball is when he does it to you. Sometimes he gets really angry about it too. I'm not kidding. He'll already have the ball, and on occassion he'll still just knock you to the ground. Then you'll start to get up and he'll smack you in the face with the ball. He'll do this several more times. It doesn't help him get to the basket, it doesn't make me tired or something; it serves no purpose. The CPU just got sick of me slapping it around and decided to take the law into its own hands. Perhaps Rap Jam was originally designed as a movie-of-the-week simulator and at the last second they realized they'd better make it a basketball game if they want people to buy it.

• Speaking of the law, it doesn't exist here. Pummeling boy scouts should make that obvious, but more to the point: There's no ref. As if picking a kid up and breaking him over your knee didn't make the game easy enough, you also don't have to hold to any other rules of basketball, most notably goal tending. If you've just had your ass handed to you by your enraged former victim, you can get up, dust yourself off, casually stroll over to the net while he's wiping away tears so he can see to shoot, and just pop your hand into the air whenever the ball gets near. The unfortunate side effect of this is that there's also no ref to remind everyone that when I score from half fucking court, it should probably count for three points.
• Which brings up the final note: You are playing as the rap star you chose at the beginning of the game, but you are also God's ambassador to Earth, the corporeal manifestation of His divine Hand as it pertains to amusements involving rubber spheroids forcibly inserted into netted rings. It's just as well there're no foul calls because you can easily sink shots from the free throw line -- your opponent's free throw line. The latter matches have you pitted against players who are better at keeping you from dunking, but it doesn't really matter because you can just stand on the other side of the court and lob balls behind your back while reading the Wall Street Journal. There is no aspect to this game that they did not properly fuck up.

So after you've crushed this kid's skull with a cudgel and hidden him in a dumpster, who's next?

Ah yes, Gary Coleman using the Dennis Rodman Hair Care Kit. If you'll notice, they even managed to make your second opponent shorter than your first. He's so short that -- no exaggeration -- you can stand over him when he tries to shoot and the ball will automatically go into your hands. Marvellous. Note how Coolio can't bear to face him or he'll break out laughing. Also note the audience comprised of one Shriner elf.

And that's the whole game. After you grind Gary's face into the gravel you begin taking on other rappers, and finally at the end you face off against the "all-star" and "dream team" players who are just your generic Tupac model with the new ability to actually run faster than my grandma. After all this work you come to the end, where you are informed..

..that you are ALL THAT!!!

They didn't want to put in some fake date that they knew wouldn't match up with the actual day you were playing, thus taking you out of the moment, so instead they just made it out for TODAY, deftly keeping the realism intact. You've finally gained the only thing you were lacking as an internationally successful recording artist: A large sum of money. Spend it on a bunch of palette-swapped t-shirts. You've earned it. And remember: