Ali Crap Redux

My post last Wednesday, Ali Crap, caused a mini firestorm here in No Mas-land, and so I thought it was only fair that I briefly revisit the issue having actually watched the ESPN show in question, "Ali Rap."

Here's what I have to say: I thought it was a bunch of crap.

Is there anyone who watched this shit and actually thought otherwise? Was anyone impressed that EOE managed to assemble a series of quick-cut Ali clips set to a boilerplate backbeat, loosely arranged to emphasize the bleeding obvious (Ali Was Funny, Ali Was Profound) and otherwise retell a story that has been told better in about a thousand different productions? Christ, it didn't even look that good - it looked cheap, thrown together.

As for the all-important hip hop question, every now and then some rapper, M.C. Lyte for instance (looking like a soccer mom) says something like, "Ali is everything to rap," or Doug E. Fresh says, "Ali is hip hop and hip hop is Ali." Chuck D tries a little harder to provide the Ali/rap connection, but even he embarrasses himself, standing uncomfortably in a very-fake-looking boxing ring and reading lines that I can only hope he didn't write himself:

• "All the great rappers can move people with their soul-cutting words, forcing us to take a closer look at who and what we are... so too did Muhammad Ali force us to watch and listen..."

• "In the modern streetborn jargon of rap, humor often has more impact than high-decibel rants... no one knew this better than Muhammad Ali..."

With these criteria, I found myself wondering if Teddy Roosevelt didn't invent rap.

By far the most painful aspect of the show is the inclusion of various celebrities reciting Ali's lines - even the august Rakim seems awkward and foolish doing this, let alone dubious inclusions like Bill Maher, or James Earl Jones, or Sly Stallone (by the way, is Stallone punchy? has he taken too many fake shots to the head? wtf?).

After an hour of this boondoggle, I couldn't bring myself to watch "Ali's Dozens" (note: anybody who starts talking to you about "playing the dozens" in any context definitely has a Phd. in something). Basically, I would have no real problem with this show without the rap angle - I'd wonder why they bothered, I'd think that as Ali docs go this one was about as thin as they come, but I wouldn't feel repulsed by it. As it is, though, it continues to sicken me. It's a soft-minded conflation of blarney churned out to make a buck on Ali's name and image. It's disrespectful of the man as a singular phenomenon, disprespectful of rap as an art form, and disrespectful to us for believing that we'd so easily swallow such a load of garbage.