The Greatest Name-Checker in Rap History

by Dan-O

The Game put out a new album(Born 2 Rap) that is not great. He takes samples from high profile songs and says Nicki’s name a bunch because he wants to have sex with her still (he’s been saying thirsty things about Nicki for YEARS). He talks about Jay a lot. I feel like his reputation is that he is the wildest name-checker in rap and I wanted to course correct.

Chino XL is the actual name. If you know him you remember 2pac cursing him out by name in Hit Em Up. Why did that happen? Well, on his 1996 DEBUT album(Here To Save Us All) he got a Ras Kass feature on a song called Riiiot! And this is part of his first verse.

“Governmently engineered like e bola for this rap garage sale
By this industry, I’m trying not to get fucked like 2pac in jail
You can hate me, but await me like I’m magic johnson’s
Death in a box with jordan’s pops that ass’ll never take another breath
Cuz, I write the songs like barry manilow
I like my sugar brown like hugh grant fucked d’angelo.”

He ends that song with a verse that includes the line “Punchlines with more elasticity than Biggie’s stretch marks.” My point is this: next time we talk name-check rap think about the context. Game keeps talking about Jay because he wants to be Jay. He keeps talking about female rappers he wants to sex because he’s thirsty. All his name drops are out of desperation.  Chino XL has a career full of jaw dropping name drops that don’t benefit him at all. In 1996 he was clowning OJ Simpson, in 2012 he was making fun of Muhammed Ali’s brain stem. If you are going to drop the name of someone important do 2 things for me A.) don’t walk it back and apologize B) make it heinous. Do it out of an unparalleled fearlessness. Shake the world up so the people who feel safe don’t anymore….and when the consequences come take them like a seasoned criminal takes a sentence. Or don’t do it at all.