Over the past few years, Nintendo has received a lot of criticism for failure to credit contributors by name and this trend seems to continue in the The Super Mario Bros. Movie. DK’s rap is attributed to “Donkey Kong 64” rather than a human creator in the credits for the film, which is produced by Nintendo, Universal Pictures and Illumination. And its composer is not happy about it.
DK rap is the intro song to Donkey Kong 64the first 3D DK game released in 1999. Although the quality of the song is a bit questionable, it does its job in introducing Donkey Kong and his friends (who are all playable in the game). Kirkhope said in an an interview that he composed the rap (which was co-written by George Andreas) as a joke and he was extremely underrated at the time.
“[People] they were trying to compare me to credible rappers of the time who were superstars. I was like, “I’m just Grant Kirkhope, I’m nobody,”” he said. “I wasn’t trying to make a proper rap song, it was just meant to be a bit of a joke.” It’s been more than two decades since rap emerged, and Kirkhope is in a very different place than he was then. He’s also nominated has won several music awards and has many fans who think strongly of his work. Elsewhere, the song definitely doesn’t get much respect. Even Seth Rogen (who voices Donkey Kong in the film) called it “one of the worst rap songs of all time”.
“I was really looking forward to it [seeing] my name in the credits for DK Rap, but alas, as expected, it’s gone,” wrote Grant Kirkhope, the original composer. “FML.” my city asked Kirkhope why he expected not to be recognized for rapping, but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Whether or not DK Rap is artistically accomplished is beside the point. Artists should always be properly credited when their art is reused in any way, especially after the original Mario composer Koji Kondo is indicated in the credits. Kirkhope didn’t even mind that people thought rap was bad. He was just looking forward to seeing his name where it belonged: in the credits of the movie.
“If you had told me in 1997, when I wrote the worst rap song in the history of rap songs, that it would be included in a Mario Bros movie, I would have exploded with excitement!” he tweeted a week before the movie’s release. “Long Live DK Rap!”