Boastful Rap

"Yeah, paying the bills with my mean computing skills! Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills!
Got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM! I never feed trolls and I don't read spam.
Installed a T1 line in my house! Always at my PC double-clickin' on my missous!
Upgrade my system at least twice a day, I'm strictly plug-and-play! I ain't afraid of Y2K!
I'm down with Bill Gates, call him "Money" for short.
 I call him up at home and I make him do my tech support!
 It's all about the pentiums, what!"

—"Weird Al" Yankovic, "All About The Pentiums"

Boastful, self-aggrandizing songs really occur in all genres, but it's particularly common for rappers to rap about how they're badass/what they can do, about their possessions, homies, and stuff, about who they are, or a combination of all of the above.

Almost every other Hip Hop song is like this.

Compare Bragging Theme Tune and A Wild Rapper Appears. If sung by a antagonistic character, can be considered a Villain Song.

Examples of Boastful Rap include:

Straight Examples

  • A few of the Beastie Boys' songs affirm their rapping ability, though it is at times so absurd that it's quite possibly parody ("Got more hits than Sadaharu Oh", indeed).
  • N.W.A.. Sort of. They popularized all this.
  • Ludacris - "Stand Up", bragging about his various club antics and including the memorable line "Watch out for the medallion, my diamonds are reckless, feels like a midget is hanging from my necklace"
    • Ludacris' Rollout someone in amazement of his loot.
    • In fact, a B-side on his first album is called "Mouthing Off":

They call me Seymour Butts, cause I get mo' ass than most
They say I'm next and got that butter love, and get too close
Follow the leader cause I'm meaner than medulla oblongota
My Tribe's on more Quests than Midnight Marauders

  • Rihanna has a verse on "LOYALTY." by Kendrick Lamar that boasts her "bad girl" status.
  • The Binary Star song "Honest Expression" is largely a reaction to this trope; an extended tirade about how everybody who makes Boastful Rap songs is a poser who is killing hip-hop.
  • Knuckles the Echidna gets into the act in Sonic Adventure, trying to convince us that he didn't chuckle in every single one of his Sonic 3 appearances, or that he has any form of visible musculature.
  • Most of HP Baxxter's song lyrics have something to do with his superiority as a rapper.
    • Scooter do have a lot of haters, especially since they started relying on squeaky voiced choruses all the time. So you'll have an odd situation where in the verses HP is rapping about his brilliance and originality and the chorus is a squeaky voiced rendition of a well known song. Then again, this is quite common in classic hip hop.
  • Jimmy's rap from Dreamgirls, which immediately leads to the firing of Jimmy.
  • Sushi K's rap in Snow Crash. Which is frighteningly terrible and ironically contrasted with a murder carried out by Raven, described in-book as the baddest-ass motherfucker in the world.
  • About half of Jedi Mind Tricks' discography, but "Serenity In Murder" deserves a honorary mention for the line

"Vinnie vicious like a werewolf at night
 I could go to the woods and kill a bear with my mic"

  • A lot of Missy Elliott's songs are this trope.
  • Timbaland's Kill Yourself.
  • Let's be honest here - hip-hop itself largely consists of this trope, especially in The Eighties and The Nineties. Artists like Rakim, the various members of the Wu-Tang Clan, Big L, and more perfected the Boastful Rap. Doesn't stop a lot of it from being Crowning Music of Awesome, though.
    • This is true, particularly for Big L. He personified this trope. Just look up the lyrics to any one of his songs.
  • Both "A Lot of Stick" and "Doubting Me" by Kareeminal start off very much like True Art Is Angsty but by the end they turn into this trope.
  • Look Pimpin from MadWorld, as sung by the final boss, The Black Baron (stop staring). There's also You Don't Know Me, which was based around the lady bosses (Elise and Rin-Rin). Not based on anyone, but still a boast of power, is Ain't That Funny, the Great Wall Street theme.
  • Even the poster boys of Wangst aren't exempt from this. See Linkin Park's "Step Up" and "High Voltage". The band's rapper continues this trend with Fort Minor's "Remember the Name".
  • My power towers like the Eiffel/ Believe I got the right pull/ My vision is insightful/ You look you get an eye-full...
  • Bradley Nowell of Sublime was fond of these, the most famous probably being from the song "What I Got" 'I can play guitar like a motherfuckin riot.'
  • LL Cool J's battles with Kool Moe Dee were the stuff of Hip Hop legend.
  • Lil B has claimed to be God, Bill Clinton, the Devil, Paris Hilton, Hugh Hefner, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Mel Gibson, and Ellen DeGeneres and to look like Jesus, Bill Gates mixed with Barack Obama, and the pope. He also called himself "The Based God," whatever that means.
  • Lupe Fiasco's "Superstar" was a surprising deconstruction of this trope. Though he wasn't parodying those who boast, it was definitely more about the insecurities and loneliness that come from 'gangsta' celebrity rather than the perks, fame, and money.
  • Kanye West: Oh, yes..
    • Kanye West and Estelle - "American Boy", in which Kanye brags about his fame and fashion sense, with Estelle complimenting him for good measure.
  • Jay Z
  • Likewise Jay Z's predecessor Big Daddy Kane
  • As previously mentioned legendary emcee Rakim raps was made of this. But this was part of the appeal along with his sharp lyricism.
  • Bender from Futurama is fond of these
  • Olive from A.N.T. Farm spits fire on the M-I-C mostly about her genius-like talents
  • Teen Witch has a trio of white boys rap against the titular character's best friend friend who all of a sudden starts rapping boastfully as a result of her friend's witch powers.
  • iCarly during the party scenes of iParty with Victorious is a good example of this trope. However, Sam and Rex are the only characters that don't make Tupac roll over in his grave.
    • Subverted by Robbie who gets knocked unconscious by an angry crowd member before he can make a presumably poor attempt of a Boastful Rap.
  • Chris Brown's "Look at Me Now".
  • DJ Khaled's All I Do Is Win might be one of the straightest examples to hit the charts in recent years. Features guest spots from T-Pain, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, and Rick Ross, and every single one of them is attempting to one-up each other.

Parodies

  • Toyed with by Insane Clown Posse, who boast about things like sex with obese women and having magic powers in a parody of the boastful rap style.

Others rap about all the money they got
All the ice they wear and all the people they shot
All the chicks they pullin' all the cars they drive
Only we'd rap about fucking a beehive.

  • From The Lonely Island:
    • "I'm On a Boat", featuring T-Pain.
    • "Natalie's Rap". Natalie Portman is fucking scary.
    • "Like a Boss", which just turns into something else entirely. It's a parody of, what else, Slim Thug's "Like a Boss".
    • "We're Back!", which brags about erectile dysfunction, amongst other things.
    • "Jack Sparrow" starts out as one of these, but is derailed by Michael Bolton, who's been marathoning the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The boys attempt to regain control of the song - and fail. Though getting him to change the subject to Scarface makes it mildly more appropriate.
    • "Watch Me Do Me", wherein the "I'ma do me" in rap is taken a wee bit too seriously.
    • "We'll Kill U", in which two incredibly non-threatening white nerds brag about how they'll kill you in a completely deadpan, bored fashion.
  • "Pixie Rap", from Fairly Oddparents. To make it even funnier, it's performed by Method Man and Redman, who are well accustomed to doing this with the upmost sincerity.
  • "I'm a Gangsta", which is from a dorky white kid.
  • This rap video with, out of all people, Taylor Swift. Also featuring T-Pain.
  • PDQ Bach gives "Classical Rap", featuring:

I'm the apex, I'm the best. I'm considerably better than all the rest.

There's no killer app I haven't run
At Pascal well I'm number 1
Do vector calculus just for fun...

I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support

  • 50 Cent did "Window Shopper" with a video that featured super-imposed pricetags on every piece of product placement. Lily Allen then did "Nan You're A Window Shopper" which reversed and parodied the original.
  • In 1984, "The Rappin' Duke" was John Wayne claiming to be the first rapper.
  • "The Shadow of Def" by Brave Saint Saturn.

Master of beats and the cross-fader,
I'll cut off your hand just like Darth Vader.
You step to me, you're gonna get dissed, homeboy.

I’m just a regular everyday normal guy…Nothin’ special bout me motherfucker.
I’m just a regular everyday normal guy…When I go to the club I wait in line motherfucker.
I’m just a regular everyday normal guy…I got $600 in the bank motherfucker
I’m just a regular everyday normal guy…And my sexual performance is average.

"I buy a lot of expensive thing because I have a lot of money. You cant afford expensive things because you don't have a lot of money"
"When I show women my money they want to have sex with me and they always have orgasms because my penis is so big, 25 inches long and 12 inches wide"

    • There is also F*ck Everything, in which he boasts how nobody gives less fucks than him.

Yo. All the rappers claim to not give a fuck.
Well step aside bitches, cause I give the lowest amount of fuck humanly possible

  • "Pace, Precision, Power", which is a boastful rap about Pro Evolution Soccer.
  • The Flobots' "Handlebars" is a deconstruction of boastful rap, starting with childlike bragging ("I can ride my bike with no handlebars") and culminating in some pretty scary stuff ("I can end the planet in a holocaust").
  • Jaden's Rap from Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series
  • Spose's song, fittingly titled I'm Awesome
  • Hot Chip's "The Warning" parodies it with a chorus that'd sound threatening, if only it weren't delivered in a mild-mannered voice more reminiscent of John Arbuckle than Jay Z...

Hot Chip will break your legs
Snap off your head
Hot Chip will put you down
Under the ground

  • Ever heard anyone rap about being a freelance Final Cut Pro editor? You have now.
  • Every Wrestler in GLOW did this before every match, including the one that would become WWE's Ivory. The parody came from most of the roster being stock foreigner wrestlers.
  • The Veronicas "Popular".
  • The Rap Critic raps about this in his music video "Oh, Really?":
  • Tinie Tempah's "Pass Out" is half straight example, half Affectionate Parody. The hook is standard if arguably lame Boastful Rap about partying and drinking and getting all the women, but the verses contain bizarre, uncool boasts like "I got so many clothes I keep them in my aunt's house" and "I'm pissed I never got to fly on a Concorde / I been Southampton but I've never been to Scunthorpe". (Note: for Americans unsure about those English towns, know that they are both desperately uncool.)
  • There are mock rap battles in Homestuck (of course), including the lamest and best in the history of Paradox Space.
    • At one point, Tavros attempts to troll Dave by performing a Boastful Rap ("'Cause I'm your bully, and you're not in charge"), but unintentionally keeps making it homoerotic, much to Tavros's chagain.
  • On Whose Line Is It Anyway? Wayne Brady and Brad Sherwood once did a rap song about being an astronaut. "We're gonna blast off out of this place / And we're gonna drag your butt to outer space! And if you do not like it I do not care / Because I told you once, I'm breathing BOTTLED AIR!"
  • The SCP Foundation has an epic rap battle between SCP-076-2 and SCP-682.
  • The Simpsons episode "New Kids on the Blech," where Bart is reading aloud from the song they're to sing (sort-of rap, like the Boy Bands do):

Bart: "Party Posse, we rule the earth, / The greatest band since music's birth?"
Nelson: Isn't this song a little boastful?
Milhouse: No one told me there was going to be boasting.


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