The Rock records their first rap verse on Tech N9ne’s “Face Off”

Dwayne Johnson is a man who good at a frankly absurd number of things; wrestling, weightlifting, get the green light for film projects, and of course, being a movie star, something he classifies among the best in the world to make.

Among the few deficits in Johnson’s skill catalog, however, is music; his unique song on the original soundtrack from the 2016s Moana, “You’re welcome,” is quite energetic, but mostly you get carried away there by the melody, and the sheer strangeness of hearing The Rock sing a song. Beyond that, Johnson discography is more or less Empty.

But then you fail to to be Dwayne Johnson without treating virtually every thought that crosses your mind with the same degree of horrible, hypnotizing, seemingly indefatigable passion he already brings to lifting weights or pretending to jump buildings or terrifying us with hints of a possible presidential race. And so we have to reconcile ourselves tonight with “Face Off”, a new song by rapper Tech N9ne, which is among the contributions of other artists, a rap verse written and performed by Dwayne Douglas Johnson himself.

He is extremely funny.

Now part of this unintentional comedy is not, strictly speaking, Johnson’s fault. Tech N9ne, of whom Johnson is an established fan, having met him years ago on the set of Ballas-Is his boyfriend doing a disservice probably unintentionally by placing him last in the verse list, following Tech himself, more Joey Cool and King Iso.

The effect, then, is of constant acceleration in the flow of the song, with King Iso in particular delivering lines so fast they pick up the jerky rhythm of a snare drum. The sudden change to The rock– rap reasonably credible, but not particularly quickly, and in a voice that can alone be the rock– is a juxtaposition that cannot be properly handled by the human brain without a sudden burst of laughter.

Still, Johnson isn’t entirely flawless either, especially since he – a multi-faceted entrepreneur that he is – can’t help but tune in to his personal tequila brand during the song Elle -same.. (It also appears several times in the Variety story on the release of the song, which has a strong energy “We have negotiated the terms of this conversation to the smallest decimal place”.)

It is also very funny to see and hear the biggest movie star in the world (figuratively and otherwise; the guy looks massive with his recent Black adam mass) asks “What is my mother fucking name?! “standing in front of a group of images of bulls charging, running endlessly in a way we can only describe as “Dwayne Johnson-esque.”. There is no subtext. The subtext is dead. He was drowned in the endlessly mentioned rock, endlessly sinking Tequila.

Hilarious, Tech reveals in this same interview that he has done not ask Johnson to rap; he approached him to just do some inspirational spoken word stuff at the end of the song, which is supposed to sound like a big, dramatic fight hymn. But then, “We took the phone and structured it. He’s so talented, man. To be able to edit a song with MC masters and be MC master himself? Dwayne did his thing. (And, seriously: what would you do in his place?no ?)

Johnson too Noted, by the way, that his favorite genres of music are “hip hop and blues and outlaw country music ”, so, yeah, we have to ask: Album when?