Just one song tonight. But don’t worry! It’s really bad.

Ice Cube
Street Fighter
One of the only things that bums me out about living in Japan is that it’s a little harder for me to find weird 12″ singles. That was my bread and butter in the states, but they’re not as common here. And when I do manage to find them, they tend to be insanely overpriced. That Neil Young single I featured a few days ago? That was almost 20 bucks. That would’ve been no more than five bucks in the states, but I guess that’s the (literal) price you pay for living on an island nation that has to import most of its used vinyl.

While Japan doesn’t seem to be a fan of the 12″ single, it is thankfully more than a fan of the needless soundtrack. Since coming here I’ve scored original (not expensive modern reproduction) soundtracks to Phantasm, Xtro, Prom Night, the Knight Rider TV show and even the little-seen Australian kung fu flick The Man From Hong Kong.

A few weeks ago I got really lucky and scored a copy of the soundtrack to Street Fighter.

Street Fighter: The Movie.

On vinyl.

Yeah, so I bought that.

Spoiler: it’s fucking HORRIBLE. Nas and The Pharcyde aside, it’s mostly second-rate hip-hop and new jack swing by artists who were nearing the end of their relevance (Chuck D and LL Cool J) or by nobodies who thankfully vanished without a trace (The B.U.M.S., Rally Ral).

Oh, and Deion Sanders with MC Hammer. Because 90s.

It’s shit. And not even fun shit. It’s boring, forgettable shit from a nearly forgotten era of pop music. Not even worth talking about. Except, for this, the title track by one Ice Cube. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s shit too. But it’s shit in the most wondrous ways.

This is a boasting track, with Ice laying down rhymes about what a bad motherfucker he is. Usually, that’s quality material for an Ice Cube track. He is a bad motherfucker, after all. But Ice is a bad motherfucker when he’s talking about dealing drugs and drive-bys. He is not a bad motherfucker when he talks about his marital arts prowess. Who the fuck does he think he is, Wu-Tang?

Some choice lines:

“At the Japanese deli fo’ my troop.
And we all take malt liquor, in our wonton soup.
Oops as I smell my fork.
It smells like sweet’n’sour pork.”

Japanese deli. Wonton soup. Sweet ‘n’ sour pork.

Repeat after me, Ice, Japan and China are different countries with different cultures and cuisines.

He also talks about eating burgers with chopsticks, drinking 40s of sake and offing dudes with poison darts. But to be honest the culturally confused lyrics aren’t the worst offenders here. No, it’s when Ice calls out individual martial artists. At one point he straight up says “I want to kill Chuck Norris” before dropping a line targeting Jean Claude Van Damme that is sadly censored (probably because the movie featured Jean in the starring role).

Neither of those lines can hold a “what the fuck” candle to this though.

“Many black belts wanna try and snatch the pebble.
From the mas-ter, but I’m much fas-ter.
Just ask Bruce Lee.
Him, and Brandon died, befo’ I can who-ride.”

So, unless I’m mistaken, Ice just claimed that he could’ve laid waste to Bruce Lee had he been given the chance, and not only that, but that his son Brandon was actually lucky to have died before Ice had the chance to fuck him up.

This was 1994. Brandon Lee died the year prior.

Man, Ice that’s some fucked up shit.