It’s amazing how prevalent rap can be in the music industry, but remain virtually nonexistent as theme music, even for programs that would be targeted at rap fans (which nowadays is pretty much everyone anyway).

Soooooo, rather than populate this list with my favorite rap theme songs, I’m struggling to populate this list with any rap theme songs. This isn’t the rewarding exercise I thought it would be, but it still manages to be a pretty funny one, as some of these songs are completely absurd. And wouldn’t I rather make fun of bad stuff than enjoy good stuff unironically?

Yes, hipster self. Yes I would.

In Living Color

If you can get past the images presented during the intro, perhaps you can study or even enjoy the musical accompaniment. After all, it was performed by no less than Queen Latifah, who was one of the most iconic rappers of all time before she became a movie star.

Unsurprisingly, the Living Single theme sounds a lot like In Living Color‘s, Martin’s and another Fox show that didn’t make the list because it was so awful, Babes. They all peddle that New Jack Swing, feel good hip hop that was actually de rigueur before gangster rap stepped in and co-opted hip hop for the rest of the decade.

I personally would have rather heard “Gimme Dat Nut” as the theme song to Living Single, but I wasn’t even consulted on this. Amazing.

Please watch this video of these actually funky women dancing. It looks like how the women from The View would dance today. Was everyone this dorky in the 90’s?