Excellent and entertaining article!

I’m not sure if it counts, but I always loved the frequent mention of Superman in the early days of rap. For instance, The Sugarhill Gang’s classic “Rapper’s Delight” has this lovely exchange:

“I said, “By the way, baby, what’s your name?”
 Said, “I go by name of Lois Lane
 And you could be my boyfriend, you surely can,
 Just let me quit my boyfriend called Superman.””

Big Bank Hank then goes on to inform us how inadequate Superman (and his costume) is:

“He may be very sexy, or even cute,
 But he looks like a sucker in a blue and red suit,”
 I said, “You need a man man who’s got finesse
 And his whole name across his chest””

Newcleus, in their seminal “Jam On It” (the first rap song I ever heard, and the first I owned as a twelve inch), Cozmo D takes on the last son of Krypton in a rap battle, and Jor-El’s favourite kid gets quoted extensively:

“He said, “I’m faster than a speedin’ bullet when I’m on the set 
 I don’t need no fans to cool my amps, I just use my super breath 
 I could fly three times around the world without missin’ a beat 
 I socialize with X-ray eyes, and ladies think it’s sweet”

Oh golly, that last line is gold.

You mentioned “Proud To Be Black” by Run DMC, my favourite rap group of all time. I love all the shoutouts that various figures from black history get during the song, but none more than

“You read about Malcolm X — in the history text
 Jesse Owens broke records, Ali broke necks”

(compare this to Ali’s mention in the aforementioned “Rapper’s Delight”: “I got more clothes than Muhammed Ali and I dress so viciously”)

Probably the mention of a person in a rap song that I’ve repeated out loud the most is from The Beastie Boys’ “Posse in Effect”:

“I got a girl in the castle and one in the pagoda
 You know I got rhymes like Abe Vigoda!”

You gotta love any shoutout to Fish.

I also love “I got more rhymes than Phyllis Diller” from “Time To Get Ill” and “I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh” from “Hey Ladies”. Namedropping a Japanese baseball player? That’s awesome.

I grew up in Chapel Hill, NC, home of the UNC Tarheels, and I never learned to like basketball. This guaranteed me the title of social pariah, but even though I didn’t like the game or know more than a couple of the names, I LOVED Kurtis Blow’s “Basketball” rap. He namechecked tons of guys in that song, but my favourite had to be

“Bill Russell didn’t take no junk,
 and Darryl Dawkins got a monster dunk”

And finally:

“You said you slapped Roddy Piper and didn’t get a hassle

Promised your girl filet mignon; took her to White Castle”

It’s the only pre-1990 rap I know of that mentions a pro wrestler.