The five best hip-hop actors of all time
There is a certain theatricality to hip-hop that often—although by no means always—transfers rather nicely onto the silver screen. There is a strong tradition of rappers crossing over into the world of movies and TV shows, and, while the resulting level of performance may be best described as “mixed,” some of these hip-hop artists develop into true movie stars.
Rappers are, first and foremost, storytellers, often donning outrageous, larger-than-life costumes and performing in over-the-top, flamboyant ways. They’re already actors, of a sort, so it stands to reason that some of them should feel so comfortable embodying a role and performing it for the cameras.
The rap-to-Hollywood pipeline has been active for a long, long time, almost for as long as hip-hop’s entire existence. Since at least the early ’90s, filmmakers and producers have recognised how transferable rappers’ performance skills are to the screen, and, consequently, some of hip-hop’s greatest stars have ended up landing some big roles.
If this was a list of any old rappers to have ever appeared on screen as actors, it would be a very long one indeed. But it’s actually about the best in the game, so, with apologies to the likes of 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg and Eminem, there are plenty who don’t make the cut. This is a rundown of those rapper-actors that have achieved the most on camera.
The five best hip-hop actors of all time
5. Tupac Shakur
As with his music career, it feels like Tupac was only just getting started as an actor when he was shot and killed in 1996. His first ever film performance came in 1991, a small role in the movie Nothing but Trouble, which he followed up with a well-reviewed leading role in Juice. He appeared opposite Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice in 1993, but one of his best on-screen performances would come in Gridlock’d. Sadl,y this was released several months after his murder.
It’s difficult to say how Tupac’s acting career might have developed had he lived, but there are rumours that he had been preparing for a certain unexpected role before he died: as a jedi. It’s believed that George Lucas had planned on casting Pac as Mace Windu in the Phantom Menace, a role that ultimately went to Samuel L. Jackson. It’s quite a thought.
4. Donald Glover
A rapper who did, in fact, end up in a galaxy far, far away is Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, who appeared as a young Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018. Glover has always been a versatile artist, not only acting in films and making music as Childish Gambino, but also doing stand-up and writing his own scripts. He was only 23 when he joined the writing staff of the hit comedy show 30 Rock in 2006.
Glover’s breakthrough as an actor came when he was cast in the sitcom Community, in which he was a regular for four seasons, before tailing off his involvement for the fifth season and leaving altogether for the sixth. He went on to create—and write for and produce and direct and star in—the comedy-drama series Atlanta, for which he picked up Primetime Emmy Awards for both his acting and directing achievements. He has since voiced Simba in The Lion King and also created Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a TV show in which he also stars.
3. Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah, hip-hop’s first lady, has enjoyed a second career as an actor that, ultimately, has swept her along to the glitzy ceremonies of the Emmys, Golden Globes and even the Oscars. She began acting in 1991, the same year that she picked up her first Grammy nomination, appearing in the first season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, as well as in the movies Jungle Fever and House Party 2. She showed up in Tupac’s film Juice in 1992, but it was the year after that when she really emerged as a star of the screen, appearing as one of the leads in the sitcom Living Single, which ran from 1993 to 1998.
Latifah began to concentrate on her film career more towards the end of the ’90s and into the ’00s, albeit while also working on her chat show between 1999 and 2001. She appeared in films such as The Bone Collector and Brown Sugar, but her crowning achievement as an actor came with her Oscar-nominated supporting role in Chicago. She later also received a Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Bessie, in which she starred as the blues singer Bessie Smith.
2. Ice Cube
Ice Cube’s legendary musical run, beginning with NWA’s debut album Straight Outta Compton in 1989, and ending with his fourth solo album Lethal Injection in 1993, was about as impressive as any rapper has managed before or since. Across only four years, this run encompassed two NWA albums and four solo records, each and every one of them a commercial hit that, by and large, was reviewed well, too. It doesn’t get much better for a musician, and yet it was precisely around this time that he started turning more towards the movie business. But, sure enough, he was a huge success here, too.
Cube’s first movie was Boyz N the Hood, a massive hit that even picked up some Oscar nominations. It demonstrated just how suited Cube was to drama, and he later followed it up with thrillers like Trespass and The Glass Shield. But Ice Cube is, of course, primarily known today as a comedic actor, be it as the star of grown-up movies like those of the Friday series or of a multitude of family-friendly comedies, like Are We There Yet? These particular films may not be the greatest examples of high art, but they certainly exhibit his versatility as a performer.
1. Will Smith
Who else could be at number one? Not only did Will Smith supplement a fairly successful rap career as The Fresh Prince with some acting jobs beginning in the early ’90s, but he also developed into literally one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. With a run in the mid to late ’90s that included starring roles in Bad Boys, Independence Day, and Men in Black, Smith was arguably the most in-demand, bankable actor of the era, plus he even bore something approaching cult status at the same time, thanks to the legacy of his sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bell-Air.
Smith continued to make massive blockbusters throughout the 2000s, but he also performed in some more prestige films, too. He was nominated for an Oscar in 2007 for his leading role in The Pursuit of Happyness, in which he starred alongside his young son Jaden, but it would not be until 2022 that he finally got his hands on an Academy Award. He won it for his performance in King Richard, but, of course, people don’t remember that part anymore. That was the year when he slapped Chris Rock right across the face, thus overshadowing the greatest achievement of his acting career to date.