Humor District

Once upon a time Hip-Hop culture and the police went together about as well as Conan O’Brien and NBC.  You could get shot just for breathing the word “cop” in certain neighborhoods.  But lately a lot of rappers have traded in their gang paraphernalia (or costuming depending on who you ask) to don the uniforms of true blue heroes.  These are the best portrayal of 5-0 by a rapper.

5) Tupac Shakur

We are starting off cautiously with Tupac Shakur (2 Pac to the Hip-Hop community) since he straddles the fence by playing a corrupt cop in Gang Related, which might as well be a gangsta with a badge.  This was Tupac’s last film role and boy did he go out with a bang (no pun intended, respect Tupac).  You could think of Tupac as the last person who’d want to pretend to be a cop or you could think of his earlier rap career and his many run ins with the law as extensive research.

Best Cop role: Gang Related

4) Marky Mary

Mark Wahlberg has become quite accustomed to wearing the badge.  He’s sported blue in everything from the god-awful Max Payne adaptation to We Own the Night to the critically acclaimed Departed.  But let’s face it, he wasn’t exactly a rough and rugged badboy rapper to begin with.  In fact, playing hard-nosed cops probably increased his street cred.  I know I’d be more afraid of Staff Sgt. Dignam than the boy who desperately needs a belt.

Best Cop role: The Departed

3) LL Cool J

He has a long resume of playing cops, The Hard Way, S.W.A.T., Mindhunters and even the security guard in Halloween: H2O.  But when you are a jacked badass trying to prove yourself as an actor I guess you have to play cops or criminals.  Or cooks apparently.  The best of his demonstration in Law Enforcement is definitely his role opposite Robin Chris O’Donnell in NCIS: Los Angeles.  Though again, LL wasn’t the most threatening rapper outside a battle, so the transition goes a lot smoother than most.

Best Cop role: NCIS: Los Angeles

2) Ice T

Ice T was great as a maverick cop in New Jack City, but somehow he seems more like a perp than a detective in Law & Order: SVU.  I love the show and I love his role on the show, but it’s hard to shake his pimpin’ image from your brain and suspend disbelief that much, especially when he still behaves like a pimp off camera.

Best Cop role: Law & Order: SVU

1) Fresh Prince/Will Smith

I don’t think there are many roles he hasn’t played, but he sure likes being a cop.  His back story is a detective in Men In Black, he plays a cowboy sheriff in Wild Wild West, a future cop in I, Robot, and a buddy cop in Bad Boys.  It’s pretty safe to say that if Will Smith is on the case it’s going to get solved.

Best Cop role: Bad Boys

Beaze and all his crazy antics, featured articles and random thoughts are now on twitter @Beazewriter

Popularity: 3% [?]

What is the best and worst thing about the holidays?  One word: Marathons.  You haven’t seen the truly awesome brain rotting power of television until you’ve sat through 12+ episodes of TV’s most addictive programming.

5) CSI

Why the show is cool: Who would’ve thought science could be so cool?  Aside from the fact that non of these forensic specialist look like the dweebs who spent the day stuffed inside a locker or envying cheerleaders (except Sarah) it doesn’t get more raw and real than CSI.

Why the show is addictive: CSI shows us a life-like CGI reenactment of homicides that would make Jigsaw cringe.  It is literally a break down of those wrecks on the freeway everybody slows down to watch.

Why it never gets old: They could show an x-ray cam of someone getting shot every episodes and it would still be fascinating.

Why the show is cool: I swear I’m not a closet nerd, but who hasn’t watched a movie and said, “that s— isn’t real” at one point or another?  Mythbusters ends all debate.

Why the show is addictive: Curiosity may or may not have killed the cat, but I know for a fact it can kill a weekend.  It’s our need to know that makes this marathon so fun.  Oh yea, and they blow up a lot of s— too.

Why it never gets old: As long as people lie, there will always be a myth to bust.

Why the show is cool: Psycho.  Serial.  Killers.  Long before Dexter came out, Criminal Minds was digging into the brains of some of the most sick and twisted people on earth.

Why the show is addictive: You can’t just walk away from the TV when little Timmy is stuffed in the trunk of the pedophile who vaguely reminds you of your own weirdo neighbor.

Why it never gets old: It just never lets go.  You know you should turn away, you just can’t.

Why the show is cool: Everyone hates a pervert and therefore we love to watch heroic and interesting cops hunt these scumbags down.

Why the show is addictive:  Sex sells. Granted, Law & Order: SVU takes sexual deviance to the extreme, but if the tabloids have taught us anything it’s that society loves to see what’s going on in other people’s bedrooms.

Why it never gets old: If there are 64 positions in the Karma Sutra, then there are at least a thousand different ways to be be killed in each one.

Why the show is cool:  For a profession that routinely says, “if I tell you, I have to kill you” this is the only safe way to get inside the mind of a spy while you watch him in action.

Why the show is addictive: Michael Weston is a freaking one man army and sure isn’t shy about sharing his secrets in the “how-to” style narrating of the show.

Why it never gets old: One-trick-pony and Michael Weston don’t belong in the same stratosphere, let alone the same sentence.  I’m pretty sure he is the coolest guy on earth.  Hands down.

Popularity: 1% [?]