WWE's Own John Cena's You Can't See Me: He's A Bad, Bad Man

John Cena stands at the "Gorilla" position, waiting for his theme music to hit. Once it does, the crowd will erupt. The horns blaze, looped together to make the crowd manic. Cena comes through the curtain, puts his fists together though leaving the pinkie fingers up. It's the trademark sign. It's wordlife. Cena's vocals come through the speakers, you only hear the sick looped horns. Cena's cousin Tha Trademarc's vocals also come on. But again, those horns just take you to another place. If Muhammed Ali were boxing today, you'd imagine that this is what he'd come out to. It floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. Wrestling experts thought it was a bad idea for him to change his entrance music since the crowd already knew Basic Thuganomics verse for verse. But this song is more meaningful. Cena raps:

You can't see me, my time is now

And you believe him. His time is now. The change in theme music has just as much to do with his ascent to being the new ball carrier, carrying the ball that Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the Rock once ran with as it does with the start of his rap career. Rather than put out a quick turnaround album when his gimmick started a few years ago, Cena took three years to make sure that his wrestling gimmick wasn't a music gimmick. He knew he could flow with his buddies, but could he flow lyrically with the heavyweights in the hip hop game? John Cena went on radio shows and everywhere he went, DJ's asked him to freestyle. They wanted to know if the cat was for real. And while he wasn't Jay-Z off the dome, he didn't embarrass himself. But he still wasn't ready. He went back to his own proverbial dungeon to master his craft. It seemed that his WWE rise was going to coincide with the release of his record. Perfect harmony.

The John Cena who freestyles juvenile rhymes on Smackdown every Thursday night isn't the same guy who goes into the studio. That John Cena is a lover of the hip hop culture. He's studies the games. He studies MC's. And he stays sharp by freestyling for fun. It shows through his music. Take the first single, Bad, Bad Man. It sounds like a Gang Starr joint. It features not only Cena, but Tha Trademarc as well as hip hop veteran, Freddie Foxx, aka Bumpy Knuckles. It's the type of song that you can just lose yourself in for three minutes. It's fun, with an ode to groups like EPMD. I didn't have this much fun with a single track on the new 50 Cent album.

Now the hard part with being one of Vince McMahon's big stars is that he'll be interrogated until he's accepted by hip hop. And add to that, he's white. He'll immediately be labeled as a Vanilla Ice wannabe. And he might not get a second chance to prove otherwise. That fear might be the reason why Cena tries to come off harder than he needs to. If you've heard Murs' HUSTLE remix, you know he can hang with true MC's. But on a few songs, he feels the need to try to be accepted. He brags about his pillypacker many times throughout the album, almost unnecessarily. He goes a little too far with his punchlines when he says things like, "You call my d*ck Frank White because it's Notorious Big," on Running Game. On Beantown he still shouts out his pillypacker, but he's able to big up his home town of Boston. He says, "Yo we fresh, ya'll a little bit stale, and we about to make it ugly just like Kevin McHale." And dude is right. Kevin won't win any handsome contests. On here, he doesn't have to play rapper, he sounds like a rapper.

I don't buy the hardcore and mean John Cena. I watch this cat on Smackdown every week and he's much too cool to be hardcore. And it hurts songs like This Is How We Roll. He raps in a monotone deep voice and it doesn't energize me. He's better in the higher energy songs like Make It Loud which seems to use sound from the crowd at a WWE event. When you can cut a posse cut and go a little crazy, it takes the focus off of the studying of his flow and lyrics by rap pundits like me. But on Keep Frontin' he does exactly the opposite. It's not about the production, it's about the lyrics. Cena and Tha Trademarc just flow like they've been doing it forever. That's pretty impressive.

This is being marketed as a Cena solo joint, but I'll give him credit for getting help. Tha Trademarc has a better flow and helps out when the songs are in need of some energy. Cena can slow things down a bit and be a little clumsy, but it's simply his style. On songs like F'Low Easy, Freddie Foxx and Tha Trademarc get the song off the ground and let Cena hit cleanup. Cena even gets a little sentimental with Right Now which sounds like a sappy 70's chick flick theme song until the beat is sped up. He puts his Will Smith hat on for a second and raps about how you need to enjoy the present time and he and his cousin reflect a little bit about who they are thankful for. The production is top notch here and while you won't find any Kanye West or Just Blaze joints on this record, there are some true bangers.

For me, it's fun to watch someone like Cena do such a good job with his wrestling persona that it expands into pop culture. The Rock paved the way with his status as a true Hollywood star and now John Cena has opened up another door with this CD. Chris Jericho is another who is doing well musically, though I never felt the urge to buy a Fozzy record.

While John Cena won't make anyone forget about Rakim, he does an exceptional job at turning a fun gimmick where he spits 16 bars on a wrestling show into a full on 17 track CD. He may never be given the chance to make his mark in hip hop culture like he probably wants to, but that's only because he's going to try to do that in the squared circle.