”Lentil soup is mental fruit”
Call them ear candy or auditory delights or simply jams, songs about food have filled our ears for forever. Rap music only started in the 1970s, and already there are enough options on the menu to fill up a whole rap restaurant. We ranked the 10 choicest cuts.
This track, an absurdly hype blast of hungry bravado, ends with Digital Underground’s Humpty Hump comparing all his friends to different foods (he calls 2Pac “lobster with hot wings”), but it’s this bit at the end of the first verse that gets this track on the Top 10: “Chez wa, Allah, cheese burger/ Flame broil base, my pickle make ya wiggle/ You're busted, my mustard will wax your whole plate/ By itself, not including all my funky condiments.”
Like most rap tracks about food, Cam’ron’s “Cookies and Apple Juice” is a metaphor. We won’t elaborate further, because we try to keep it clean here at GOOD, but it’s a great track.
Action Bronson is actually a former chef with his own food show on Vice. But he sums up his love for food perfectly in “Tapas” from his 2012 mixtape, “Blue Chips” with “Wood burning brick oven shit with the furnace/ Quattro fromage/ Big plate look like a lobster collage/ I'm on the art and the food scene/ F*ck rap, laying back, eating poutine.”
The granddaddy of food rapping, The Fat Boys’ “All You Can Eat” finds the group of large-boned linguists at a diner, where there’s a special: $3.99 for all you can eat. The call-and-response cut features gems like (Prince Markie D) “Give me some hot macaroni and cheese!” / (The Human Beat Box): “Give me some more food please!”
In the 1990s, Goodie Mob were the funky kings of the south, and this track is their perfect ode to eating like a king in the south. The best part? When Big Gipp gives a shout-out to legendary Atlanta wings spot Mo-Joe’s: “Hot wings from Mo-Joe’s/ Got my forehead sweating/ Celery and blue cheese on my menu next.”
This might be the best summer food jam in history. Though the title refers to sticky green weed, the track is full of great foodie lyrics like, “I just sauce ’em up like Prego/ Fettucini with Alfredo,” and, “Couple summers later I got paper/ I acquired taste for salmon on a bagel/ With the capers on a square plate/ At the restaurant with the why you got to stare face.”
Ham ’n eggs might have been good enough for Sam, but for A Tribe Called Quest, it’s unhealthy, cholesterol-filled garbage. Instead, they promote healthy foods: “Asparagus tips look yummy, yummy, yummy/ Candied yams inside my tummy/ A collage of good eats, some snacks or nice treats/ Apple sauce and some nice red beets.”
Rapper vegetarianism is a relatively rare thing, but Dead Prez has always been a hyperconscious rap group. Their 2000 cut is all about that cuisine. In it, stic.man and M-1 go off about veggies: “I don't eat no meat, no dairy, no sweets/ only ripe vegetables, fresh fruit and whole wheat/ I'm from the old school, my household smell like soul food, bro/ Curried falafel, barbecued tofu/ No fish though, no candy bars, no cigarettes/ Only ganja and fresh-squeezed juice from oranges,” raps stic.man, and M1 responds with: “Lentil soup is mental fruit / And ginger root is good for the yout' / Fresh veg-e-table with the Ital stew / Sweet yam fries with the green calalloo.”
Most of the lyrics are just Heems and Kool A.D. deadpan rapping, “I’m at the Pizza Hut/ I’m at the Taco Bell/ I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.” But for some reason that’s enough to make this track one of the funniest rap tracks in history.
A group of kids made the track while in a class at a Minneapolis YMCA. The song about kids’ favorite snack foods blew up in the summer of 2012 and currently has over 14 million views. It’s innocence is astounding, but its breathtakingly well-made. And it actually makes you wanna grab a couple bags of chips, head to the park, and chill out. In a nutshell, it’s food-rap perfection.
Nicki Minaj – “Truffle Butter”
Timbaland & Jay-Z – “Lobster & Shrimp”
Lupe Fiasco – “Gotta Eat”
De La Soul – “Pease Porridge”
Skee-Lo – “The Burger Song”
Strong Arm Steady - “Chittlins & Pepsi”
R. Kelly – “In the Kitchen”
E-40 featuring B-Legit & Stressmatic – “Gouda”
Nas featuring Busta Rhymes – “Fried Chicken”
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