John Cena’s love for hip-hop runs deep.
In conversation with Shannon Sharpe for his Club Shay Shay podcast, the 47-year-old WWE star reflected on being “super passionate” about hip-hop as an expression of his rebellion in his predominantly white small town of West Newbury, Massachusetts.
“I was one of five boys, and I had a lot of angst with how the household was being run. I was a rebel. That music found me at the right time,” Cena said around the six-minute mark in the video above.
“So even though a song like [N.W.A’s] ‘Fuck tha Police’ might have been an anthem for the state of the social well-being in South Central Los Angeles—to a 13-year-old kid the police are my parents, and it was me who was like, ‘Well, fuck that,’” he added.
Cena named artists like Rakim, Nas, the Beastie Boys, the Fat Boys, Kool Moe Dee, and others as his favorites back in the day.
His love for the genre led him to create his own music when “stock rap music” produced for him at the WWE wasn’t to his liking.
“At the time, WWE was a rock and roll company. They didn't have any depth of field for hip-hop, and I listened to my own music being like, ‘I could do better than this,’” he said.
Despite some of the comparisons to Eminem, Cena clarified that he never hit the booth with the intention to “measure up” against the “Lose Yourself” rapper.
“I called up a friend who knew a friend who had a studio. We got some beats and we made an album. And that was it, that was it,” Cena said.
Those studio sessions became his 2005 debut album, You Can’t See Me. According to Billboard, the 17-song LP peaked at No. 15 on their Album 200 chart and sold 385,000 copies as of 2014.
When asked to name his top three athlete-rappers, Cena chose Master P, the late Kobe Bryant, and Shaq. For his personal Mount Rushmore of rappers, Cena named Jay-Z, Eminem, Nas, and Rakim, making sure to note his bias towards East Coast “boom bap” and wordplay.
“Everyone has their bias and I know that list is obviously going to incite riots,” Cena said. “We all have our bias. We all have our favorites. That's what makes music special. That's what makes creativity. I was brought up in the East Coast boom bap. I love wordplay, I love poetry, that's what I based my character on. So I think all that's super clever.”
The wrestler, who is set to retire next year, also revealed that he no longer listens to music while driving, preferring the sound of his car as an opportunity to meditate.
Cena also admitted he was unaware of Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s feud beyond what he saw playing out in the headlines. Sharpe told him the consensus is that K.Dot was the clear champion, with “Not Like Us” becoming “the song of the summer” and being heard at all kinds of sporting events.
“I'm the one person, the one breathing human being, who did not hear bar one of this,” he confessed. “I haven't heard any music, any tracks. Nothing.”
“I kind of drifted away from hip-hop right around Drake,” Cena said. “I always thought Drake was extremely talented. Again, I love wordplay. I think his stuff is very well thought out. I think he's very poetic. I like the way he adds music into the songs.”
“I don't have enough depth of field to evaluate anybody current. He was like the last one where it becomes fade to nothingness,” he added.