Tubi Is Somehow the Best Video Streaming Service for Rap Cinephiles

Plus more highs and lows from the world of rap, including Rick Ross’ Tesla paranoia and a diabolical track from Texas newcomer Enchanting.
Posters for the movies Phat Beach Mean Guns and Fast Vengeance
Image by Callum Abbott

Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trendsand anything else that catches his attention.


Rappers are movie stars on Tubi 

Tubi is a free, third-tier streaming service that just magically showed up on my TV one day, and I’ve probably clicked on it more than any other channel ever since for one reason: Their catalog is stacked with just about every overlooked, forgotten, or possibly imaginary movie to ever feature a rapper. 

Admittedly, too much of my spare time is spent scrolling through Tubi and watching absolutely anything with a batshit, rapper-centric poster—think a badly Photoshopped Fat Joe holding a gun or DMX standing side-by-side with a washed-up ’90s action star. It makes sense. As writer Phil Lewis recently pointed out in his newsletter, Tubi has become the “go-to platform for fans of ‘low-budget’ Black film.” With that comes movies that star rappers, or at least movies that claim to star rappers. If you’ve seen the 1996 adventure-comedy Phat Beach, you know what I mean: On that movie’s poster is a huge image of Coolio, who in reality is probably in the film for less than three minutes. (Naturally, Phat Beach is on Tubi.) 

I’m pretty sure this isn’t some grand mission by Tubi to uplift underseen Black films. The platform isn’t distinctly curated, it just seems that they figured most streamers are full of shit and charge $9.99 for it, so in turn they could grab the licensing to anything, throw some commercials in, and people would still find some use for it. They were right. I treat Tubi like a virtual Best Buy dollar bin, digging up everything from Master P’s ridiculous, No Limit-produced 2000 prison drama Lockdown to Treach training a prisoner to fight in an MMA tournament to fulfill a debt to a kingpin in 2022’s Lord of the Streets. Yes, you read that correctly: Lord of the Streets was released last year. (It’s a Tubi exclusive.)

Recently, my Tubi obsession has gone into overdrive, where I’m firing up anything with a hint of a rapper’s presence when I get a spare 90 minutes. Last weekend, I threw on the 2001 Steven Seagal flick Ticker just because Nas was on the poster. The first 15 minutes were pretty cool: Nas plays a cop who wears a leather duster, makes shitty dialogue sound poetic, and is in a relationship with TLC’s Chili, all the things you want to see. Then, he died. And the rest of the runtime has Seagal sitting behind a desk spewing bullshit about bombs. Likewise, I tried out DMX’s final film, 2021’s Fast Vengeance (another Tubi exclusive), but it turned out to be just a lot of the rapper brooding in dark rooms wearing a turtleneck. 

Sometimes these films turn out better than I expect. The violent 1997 flick Mean Guns is enjoyably nuts, starring Ice-T as a crime syndicate higher-up who locks 100 enemies inside of a private prison with weapons and says the last three standing will split 10 million dollars; he also owns a bunch of knockoff Tarantino monologues.

Another was 2022’s Detroit Dreams, one of the many Detroit-made independent Black films on the platform. In this one—directed by Curtis Franklin, aka ’90s Detroit rapper Al Nuke and longtime manager of Zaytoven—a music manager navigates the crime world while attempting to break his artist, who’s played by popular Detroit rapper Tay B. It’s not exactly well-made, there are misspellings in the title card and Tay B mumbles so much that the closed captions often say “indistinct,” but it’s actually a gripping look at the obstacles of minor regional rap stardom. (Tay B’s original song for the movie is good, too.) Not to mention the movie features cameos by rappers Shaudy Kash and Rocky Badd, hometown producing legend Helluva, as well as a scene at Babyface Ray’s lakeside house, and Icewear Vezzo randomly popping up as an assassin. Only on Tubi. 


YL and Starker sweat it out in Bushwick 

Last week, on the bottom floor of go-to Bushwick, Brooklyn club Elsewhere, I swear that at least a quarter of the crowd was flashing disposable cameras. Did I miss a sale? Was it recommended in an episode of GQ’s “10 Essentials”? Whatever the case may be, as New York-based duo YL and Starker took the small stage in their flyest throwback Avirex jackets, photos were all but necessary. The outerwear looked like a chore to rap in though, and the pair were quickly sweating as if they had a weighted blanket on their backs. But it didn’t slow them down. 

YL engaged with the crowd and busted out a flood of easygoing selections from his catalog of day-in-the-life joints. Starker was magnetic; his all-business attitude paired well with his blistering flow, which sounded as sharp live as it does on the recordings from RRR: The Album, his recent group project with YL and producer Zoomo (who DJed at the show). On my way home I fired up Starker’s older tracks on Spotify—and looked up throwaway camera prices to be better prepared next time.


Enchanting: “Walk”

Apologies to the South Florida rap heads, but there is now only one version of “Walk,” and it belongs to Enchanting, not Kodak Black. The original is half-assed anyway, with Tye Beats’ eerie instrumental doing most of the legwork. I much prefer Enchanting’s approach. The Fort Worth, Texas-raised member of Gucci Mane’s 1017 Records roster sounds like a ghost whispering in the wind, and the quieter she gets, the more sinister the song becomes. Even when she’s not saying anything that threatening, it still comes off as wicked. “Yo’ nigga in love with me,” she raps at one point, in a way that would make any rational person say: “Go ahead and have him, just leave me alone!” Who would blame them? Enchanting is making real-life nightmares. 


Mixtape of the week: Fatboi Sharif and Roper Williams’ Planet Unfaithful EP 

The combination of Fatboi Sharif’s mystical way with words and Roper Williams’ shadowy beats can be mind-altering. I wish my video editing powers were up to snuff because I so badly want to lay a few of the tracks on the Jersey rapper-producer duo’s joint EP Planet Unfaithful over a couple of existential crisis scenes in old wuxia flicks, AMV-style. My picks would be “Cinnamon,” with Sharif’s hypnotic, ODB-style sing-song and Roper’s glacial instrumental, and also “Alligator Stew,” which has a supernatural lilt. At only six tracks, the EP is tight, with two guests who both contribute to the offbeat trippiness: Elucid’s verse on “Scrabble Board Pieces” is dense and reference-rich like usual (I spit out my water when he said, “Rappers suck and they feet stink”), and Bruiser Wolf’s fast-talking is as fresh as ever. Teleport to their world for 15 minutes, it’s worth it. 


Jay Hound: “Neaky”

At this point, every neighborhood throughout New York City’s five boroughs has their own drill collective. SweepersENT. is the Upper West Side’s, and in the last few months they’ve been releasing a string of short, uptempo, brutal singles. Their thing seems to be “live performances” in the style of the From the Block YouTube series: They hang up a mic in a local hotspot and rap along to a pre-recorded track. Crew members Sdot Go and Naz GPG’s have solid freestyles, but Jay Hound’s “Neaky” is a particularly blazing intro to their collective style. 

Over a beat that merges the fast-paced rhythms of club music with the ominous mood of drill, Jay Hound raps intensely without sounding like a straight-up imitation of the Bronx’s Kay Flock and Dougie B. Those two are all energy, while with Jay Hound there’s a slight reserve that keeps the emphasis more on what he’s saying. In a subgenre where the rapping itself has increasingly taken a backseat, SweeperENT. is a nice addition to the scene. 


RealStasher 50k: “Freestyle”

While listening to Milwaukee rapper RealStasher 50k’s mixtape Fuck the Club Call the Plug Vol. 1 (amazing title), I was reminded of a few Michigan projects from a few years ago, like Damjonboi’s The Number 20 and Drego and Beno’s Sorry for the Get Off. Mainly because of how RealStasher pulls you into his neighborhood routine over a collection of mid-tempo, piano-driven grooves. What’s different is the tone: The Michigan rappers sound like they’re fully in control of their situations, while RealStasher conveys slight paranoia and exhaustion. On “Freestyle,” one of his tape’s standouts, his life sounds stressful. When he’s recording, it’s just taking away from the time he could be getting money, and a chunk of the funds he does have is caught up: “Fightin’ all these cases, payin’ lawyers, got my heart aching,” he raps. The strange break in the middle, where RealStasher’s two verses are separated by a full minute of the beat just riding, only adds to the tension. 


Headline of the week: “Rick Ross Is Afraid Teslas Will Automatically Drive Him to Police

People will clown him for this, but he’s right to be skeptical. 


Los: “RIP Shawty Lo”

Detroit rapper Los and producer Topside are very good apart, but together they reach another level. Topside’s breezy instrumentals, with their sleek basslines and booming percussion, are the perfect backdrop for Los’ vignettes, which are as economical and colorful as a Parker novel. Their chemistry shines on “RIP Shawty Lo,” as the calmly ticking hi-hats and brooding rhythm set an ideal mood for reflection. And Los is always ready for a trip down memory lane. He flashes back to some formative moments in his life—his first bag, first flip phone, first deal—his voice sounding even more worn-out than usual.