- Cena released his own rap album back in 2005, which went platinum
- The 16-time WWE Champion hasn’t heard a single track from the Kendrick Lamar/Drake beef
- Cena also named his favourite athlete-rappers
Seeing him being interviewed in his tailored suits, performing merman cameos in the Barbie movie and wandering on-stage naked at the Oscars, you could be forgiven for forgetting, or not even realising at all, that John Cena was once a platinum selling rapper.
The one-time Doctor of Thuganomics dropped his one and only album, entitled You Can’t See Me, back in 2005, shortly after his inaugural WWE Title victory at WrestleMania 21 in Los Angeles. The leader of the Cenation would regularly litter his interviews with freestyles about his opponents, he gave his title belts Pimp My Ride style makeovers so each one of them spun and he would regularly favour wearing basketball jerseys instead of his own merchandise.
Yet it has been some time since we last saw Cena demonstrate the persona that brought him to mainstream prominence almost 20 years ago. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone for good. The 16-time World Champion recently sat down with Shannon Sharpe on Club Shay Shay where he discussed his love of hip-hop and, in particular his favourite rappers of all time.
Sharpe put it to Cena as to who would be on his Mount Rushmore of rappers, to which the Peacemaker star immediately replied “For me, Jay-Z, Eminem, Nas and Rakim. I know everyone has their bias and that list is probably going to incite riots, but I was brought up on the East Coast, Boom bap, I love wordplay, I love poetry, it’s what I based my character on. That’s my list.”
Before Cena anointed his four all-time favourites, Sharpe asked him who he rated as the greatest athlete-rappers in history, giving the Suicide Squad star a choice of three out of Master P, Roy Jones Jr, Deion Sanders, Kobe Bryant, Damian Lillard and Shaquille O’Neal. Without hesitation Cena reeled off, “Master P, Kobe and Shaq,” before heaping extra praise upon Shaq, “Shaq’s got skills, man. I did Carpool Karaoke with him. He can still flow. He’s got a doctorate. He’s smart.“
For all of his love of classic hip-hop, however, Cena admitted to Sharpe that he had not heard a single bar of the Kendrick Lamar vs Drake beef that has dominated the summer. When Sharpe asked Cena who he believed had won the beef, Cena revealed, “I know nothing about this. All I know are the headlines. I am the one person, the one breathing human being who did not hear bar one of this beef. I haven’t heard any music, any tracks, nothing.”
Cena recently announced that he would be retiring from wrestling next year, embarking on a retirement tour in WWE, which is expected to see the former WWE and United States champion commit to between 30-40 dates for the company over the course of 2025 before he hangs his jorts up for good.
In his acting career, Cena most recently made a surprise cameo in season three of Emmy Award winning The Bear and also stars in the recently released Jackpot! with Awkwafina on Prime Video.
