Shia, the Creator
LaBeouf has taken up rap, and he’s starting LaBeef.
Shia LaBeouf is one of the world’s strangest creatures.
He’s starred in Michael Bay blockbusters, Lars von Trier psychosexual dramas and the 2003 classic Holes: based on the novel Holes by Sachar.
He’s played an injured mascot on Freaks and Geeks, a paranoid teen in Disturbia and an everyman loser named Louis on Even Stevens.
But out of the blue, LaBeouf has taken on his strangest role yet: a freestyle rapper.
Early in November, LaBeouf guested on the Sway in the Morning radio show and participated in the “5 Fingers of Death” challenge. With a snapback hanging low over his eyes, LaBeouf leaned forward and placed his hands on the table in front of him before the first beat began.
“You ain’t in Hollywood anymore, Shia LaBeouf. That’s not what this is,” Sway taunted. “You are now entering the valley of the hyena.”
I’ll admit I expected him to fail. But three minutes later, my jaw dropped as he casually referred to himself as “Jewish ‘Pac to this music with a twist of Whitman,” before imploring to “treat these ladies fair like I’m Henry Higgins.”
He bounces from George Bernard Shaw to Star Wars, lamenting that hip-hop was “once fertile, now it’s Timbuktu.”
But of course, this wasn’t the first time Shia LaBeouf set the world ablaze with his rhyming skills. In Holes, he rapped the opening verse in Disney’s greatest contribution to the musical canon: Dig It.
13 years after Holes, LaBeouf didn’t just do well for an actor on Sway; he did well, period.
In the three weeks since the video of the freestyle went up on YouTube, it’s gotten over 4.7 million views.
But not everyone was a fan.
Hot 97’s Peter Rosenberg took it upon himself to diss LaBeouf in lackluster style.
Rosenberg’s rap was empirically, lyrically and satirically worse than LaBeouf’s. (You guys aren’t the only Jews who can rhyme).
In response, Lil Beoufy sent a track to Charlamagne Tha God Friday morning for him to play on his show.
“Rosenberg’s the oldest turd, he knows he’s dirt,” LaBeouf raps.
And before the track finished, LaBeouf decided to take on Drake — the world’s preeminent Jewish rapper — and his fake Jamaican accent.
In the unlikely scenario that Drake weighs in, this feud will go down as the largest one in Jewish hip-hop history: There can only be one.
As Isaac Bashevis Singer once wrote, “There’s truly nothing like Jewish rap beef.”
And as my high school kosher law teacher Mr G. said, “There’s no beef quite as tasty as a juicy Shabbos brisket.”
Take a bite, boychicks. There’s plenty to go ‘round.
