I guess that should be the first criterion… so reordering them, 1) These are rap songs, 2) they are rap songs that mention the Ninja Turtles, and 3) They are released in conjunction with the movies. The 2015 Ninja Turtles song by Partners in Kryme called “Rock the Halfshell” and this amazing gem I found, “El Rap De Las Tortugas Ninja” by Juanito Say:Īnd the third criterion is that the songs are Rap songs, which excludes most of the rest of the rock-heavy 2007 TMNT soundtrack and other dance and pop songs from the other films. This is in contrast to a few other Ninja Turtles Rap songs that are out there as independent releases. The second criterion is that the song is released in conjunction with the cinematic release of a Ninja Turtles film, on the film’s soundtrack, in the film itself or the credits, or as a promotional single.
Even though the latter has Turtles in the title, it was tacked on, and the song itself doesn’t have any connection to the Turtleverse. Hammer’s “This is What We Do” falls into this category, as does “Spin That Wheel (Turtles Get Real)” by Hi Tek 3.
#Shell shocked lyrics tmnt movie#
This puts all of the songs we’re looking at here in contrast with several rap songs from each of the movie soundtracks that don’t mention the turtles at all in the lyrics. So this is the crux of what I mean by this phenomenon of the “Ninja Turtles Movie Rap Song” – every single one of the five TMNT films released between 19 has at least one rap song on the soundtrack in which the rapper talks explicitly about the turtles (and as I mentioned above, Secret of the Ooze has two).īefore delving into trying to understand this phenomenon it is worth highlighting the criteria for inclusion in the category, and giving examples of a few songs that fall outside of the scope of “Ninja Turtles Movie Rap Songs.”First, songs in this category explicitly mention the Ninja Turtles in the song’s lyrics. This is the one that is somehow the most interesting to me, in terms of identifying this pattern I’ve mentioned a few times of “Ninja Turtles Movie Rap Songs.” The soundtrack to TMNT is almost entirely rock-oriented, and yet it still has a rap song on it (albeit by a group that is a hybrid of rap and rock). You also pointed out two other more obscure “Ninja Turtles Movie Rap Songs,” like “Awesome (You Are My Hero)” by Ya Kid K, which is also from Secret of the Ooze and “Turtle Jam” by Psychedelic Dust and Loose Bruce from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.Īnd then I came across one other, “Shellshock” by Gym Class Heroes from the 2007 film TMNT.
Although this has had less kitschy ‘90s nostalgia staying power than “Ninja Rap,” it was actually much more popular – it even peaked at #1 on the UK singles charts, and in the US #2 on the hot rap singles chart and #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 (“Ninja Rap” didn’t chart and “Shell Shocked” peaked at 84). So I initially took “Shell Shocked” as just a nod to “Ninja Rap” as a way to reproduce a similar piece of kitsch 13 years later.īut once I talked to you about it, I realized that these are just two nodes of a much larger phenomenon of “Ninja Turtles Movie Rap Songs.” The most famous incarnation that I had forgotten about was “Turtle Power” by Partners in Kryme, which was the credits music for the 1990 TMNT film. I laughed because it immediately made me think of Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” from 1991’s Secret of the Ooze, which stands up as such a amazing piece of early 1990s kitch, in part because it achieves the seemingly impossible task of making Vanilla Ice seem even more ridiculous by having him chant “Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go!”
I was listening to a Spotify playlist and it just came on, so I didn’t know that it was a Ninja Turtles song until Juicy J says “We all want our cut like the Shredder” which made me take out my phone and look at it, and then caused me to laugh when I saw the TMNT cover art. Ryan Sheely: I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of “Ninja Turtles Movie Rap Songs,” and I want to do a bit of analysis about what these are and what is interesting about them.įor me, this started to become a point of interest when I first heard “Shell Shocked,” the song by Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa, and Ty Dolla $ign that is from the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In honor of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, Out of the Shadows, Ryan Sheely and Richard Rosenbaum delved deeply into the cultural history, lyrics, and musical influences of “Ninja Turtles Movie Rap Songs.” Read on to learn what they discovered, and buy the Ninja Turtles Overview Box Set for more analysis of the classic 1990s TMNT movies.
0 kommentar(er)
