⚠️ I'm publishing a couple scripts for videos that have copyright claims because YouTube won't add captions to those videos for some reason. So for our friends who aren't English speakers or those who are hearing impaired, I'll be putting the raw scripts on this forum. ⚠️
What kind of music fits the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Well, everyone has their own tastes, and to be honest, there really is no correct answer for this question. But it’s exactly this question that filmmakers who want to tackle the turtles must answer.
But if you’ve been following this channel for a while, it’s no secret that I’ve been critical of the choice of music in Mutant Mayhem. To be precise, what I said was that the movie quote “has a nonstop barrage of Hip-Hop music.” And outside the original score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, that’s absolutely true. I literally cannot forget the image of Bebop’s deformed tits close-up while Gucci Mane and Kodak Black play in the background.
“B-b-but Tatoruzu! Rap music has been a part of TMNT since the very beginning. You’re being so racist right now!”
Just shut the fuck up for a second. I never said I didn’t enjoy rap music or think rap music has absolutely zero place in TMNT.
I enjoy music of all genres. I know some people say they enjoy all music and don’t really mean it. No, I mean it. I enjoy country music. I enjoy electronic music. I enjoy emo music. I enjoy punk music. Prog rock, metal, ska, whatever. You name it, I listen to it.
And of course, that includes rap.
But does that mean we have to insert rap into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Hell, does it even fit?
Let’s look back at the original film trilogy to see how it worked out then.
I want to put aside the film score, but I think we can all appreciate the score of the 1990’s film. At least for me, I can still hear the music that plays in the opening scene with the reveal of the foot clan, for example. The score was great.
But in terms of songs featured in the film, we had This Is What We Do by M.C. Hammer in the foot clan hideout with all of the delinquents. You remember the 14 year old kids smoking and playing with stolen shit? Yeah, I’m talking about the song that was played in the background there.
It’s a pretty iconic scene, to be fair. But I wouldn’t necessarily say this cements rap’s legacy in the franchise. I mean, if it’s used as the theme for a bunch of delinquents, does that really count?
And that really is the most prominent rap song in the film, but looking at the official soundtrack, there were a few other hip-hop songs even if they weren’t featured as prominently, like the song “Spin That Wheel,” which was apparently censored because the original song referenced drug use. Very classy.
And how could I forget the end credits song, Turtle Power by Partners In Kryme. The lyrics include great lines like:
“Raphael. He's the leader of the group
Transformed from the norm by the nuclear goop
Pizza's the food that's sure to please
These ninjas are into pepperoni and cheese”
Yeah… it was bad. And it’s safe to say that it’s probably the one part of the movie that has aged the worst. Look, I love cheesy TMNT nostalgia as much as the next guy, and I can appreciate this song for what it is. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t listen to this in my free time.
But you need extreme professional-grade nostalgia goggles to think this still holds up today. And what’s worse, they somehow thought this song was good enough to be re-used for the soundtrack of the third film.
But speaking of sequels and really bad TMNT rap songs that didn’t age well, we have to talk about Secret of the Ooze and the Ninja Rap by Vanilla Ice.
I vividly remember the first time I watched it. This must’ve been like 10 years after the movie was originally released, so keep that in mind. By that time, New Line Cinema was already purchased by Turner Broadcasting System, so sometimes the movie would air on TV.
So I was hanging out with one of my friends at his house, and I saw Secret of the Ooze was on. I had already watched the first movie and really enjoyed it, and naturally thought the second movie would be pretty similar.
And there I was, sitting down on the floor in front of the TV with my friend watching a movie I had recommended completely red-faced and cringing at how embarrassingly juvenile and bad that Ninja Rap performance was.
I know many people have fond memories of it, okay? But it just didn’t pan out that way for me. But like the Partners in Kryme song, I still listen to that shit.
But the fact is that the music in TMNT films wouldn’t have been as bad if the music choice was… better. It’s very telling that only a mere decade after the fact, the Ninja Rap was completely outdated.
But other rap songs in 1991 didn’t quite have the same fate. Ice T’s Original Gangster was an instant classic, and it still holds up really well to this day. In fact, it’s often considered one of his best solo tracks of all time. During the same year, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, 2Pac, and many more released great tracks.
But of course, that would go back to the same problem posed by the song Spin That Wheel, which had to be censored for the first film’s soundtrack. In other words, would “real” Hip-Hop really be appropriate for a film that was ostensibly meant for a younger audience?
And look, if it were up to me, and I was making a TMNT film, maybe I’d have Raphael listening to Ja Rule’s Clap Back or DMX’s Where The Hood At.
But in the real world, TMNT films are made with children in mind, so we have to take what we get.
So with all of that being said, would you argue that the Partners in Kryme and Vanilla Ice songs necessarily mean that TMNT has always openly embraced rap music and the culture surrounding it? I wouldn’t say so. I’d say that those are extremely sanitized songs meant for children, and the fact that the lyrics happened to be rapped, doesn’t necessarily mean there was always this sort of big embrace of rap music and Hip-Hop culture in TMNT films.
Again, would I necessarily be opposed to rap music in a TMNT film if the music is appropriate for whatever sort of age group the movie is aiming for? No, I’m definitely not opposed to that whatsoever.
But here’s where Mutant Mayhem comes in. I feel like the way Mutant Mayhem incorporated rap music was just part of a cynical ploy to make the movie seem as black as possible to try to capitalize on urban Tik Tok trends and the popularity of black Spider-Man among the youth, all at the expense of alienating older fans.
Everything about Mutant Mayhem, not just the music, was black, and it was purposefully crafted that way. The characters, even ones that were white once upon a time, were black. Most of the voice talent was black. New York’s unique ethnic diversity with Asian, Irish, and Italian communities were erased and black-washed to make it seem like New York City is some sort of urban Hip-Hop Wakandan utopia. But of course, we all know what “diversity” actually means.
And simply saying “well, rap has always been a part of the TMNT” is not a satisfactory answer, because in Mutant Mayhem, we had Kodak Black, who does not exactly fit the essence of a clean-cut sanitized Vanilla Ice in a suit performing the Ninja Rap. We can ambiguously say they are both “rap” but everyone knows that we’re talking about two different things here.
The character Super Fly really is the personification of everything I’m talking about here. Super Fly was voiced by Ice Cube, a Hip-hop legend that I mentioned earlier in this video and spoke positively about.
It’s a damn shame that we never had a mature 90s TMNT movie with Ice Cube’s music on the soundtrack. I would’ve loved to see his talents used in a good way. Instead, in the current year, Ice Cube’s talents were just used to voice a character meant to repackage the TMNT into something new and palatable for America’s Tik-Tok obsessed majority minority Gen Z demographic.
In other words, Ice Cube was cynically used by Paramount to pervert the TMNT into something it never was instead of using Ice Cube to tastefully complement the existing essence of TMNT.
My problem is not with Ice Cube or rap music. My problem is with the maliciously subversive nature of the film and how they cynically used TMNT and Hip-Hop culture as a means to make money without respecting either TMNT or Hip-Hop.
I mentioned earlier in the video where we had a closeup of Bebop’s big boar titties while Gucci Mane and Kodak Black played in the background. If you don’t remember, that scene was when Super Fly was first revealed to the turtles.
The song “Wake Up in the Sky” by Gucci Mane, Kodak Black, and Bruno Mars played in the background. Particularly the portion of the song that goes “I know I'm super fly, I know I'm super fly.”
You know, it’s quite ironic that the writers were able to find the perfect entrance song for Super Fly that uses the actual phrase “super fly” AFTER they had already made the decision to name the character Super Fly. Well, that is, of course, unless they decided to name the character Super Fly only after first hand-picking a Gen-Z approved rap song.
In a way, that would be perfectly poetic and really drive home the point of Super Fly being the personification of everything wrong with Mutant Mayhem. He really is just a walking stereotype and only exists to give the movie some more urban cred.
All in all, the takeaway is this. No, rap music hasn’t always been a part of TMNT in the same way it was incorporated in Mutant Mayhem. But no, it’s not a problem if rap music is tastefully used in TMNT. However, Mutant Mayhem completely dropped the ball in that respect.
