IRB's Classy People of the Week: June 26th

Everybody loves music, even if it is shitty Swedish music. Almost everybody loves sports (hell even hippies love frisbee). But when the two mix, that's when things are at their classiest. So this week's classy people of the week are athletes who have music albums (also known as mathletes).

I know what you're thinking - how is this different from a celebrity releasing an album and hoping it does well based on their popularity? Well, to begin with athletes are just cooler. It'd be a hell of a lot more fun to hang out with someone like Jon Daly than Johnny Depp any day of the week. They get paid as much, but they get to play games for a living. The American Dream is playing sports for a living (or inventing something dumb like the drop ceiling) and getting rich. If you have the extra cash laying around, why not make an album?

Here's a few reasons why sports albums are shitclassy:

1) ESPN pushes the fact that they have an album and shove it down our throats - especially if they're from Boston or New York.



Bronson Arroyo plays the guitar. He recorded an album after the Sox won their first recent Series. According to Wikipedia one song on his album was a collaboration with Johnny Damon, Kevin Youkilis, and Lenny Denardo - the fucking Red Sox victory song. Way to cash in on opportunity, douchebag. Nice cornrows by the way. I guess he's going along with the idea that you need to have cornrows to release an album. The precedent has been set in the past, by guys like AI. Cornrows are classy.

2) To be a legit album, you ought to spell your name out as an acronym, like N.E.R.D. or O.A.R.



This is exactly the formula that Kobe (pre-rape) followed to make his album, which featured 50 Cent, Tyra Banks, and Broady Boy. Even more proof that Kobe can't win by himself.

3) You rap about how hard things have been for you (while suspended from your sport)



I know Artest had lots of time on his hands after beating Eminem's ass in the stands in Detroit, but come on - you're a professional athlete, not a rapper. At least he recorded a song about what happened in the Palace. Because we all needed to be reminded of it. Call me when you sell over 400 copies of your album in one week. Making a poor selling album is classy.

4) Your album is in French.



Isn't there some law against French point guards trying to look hard? More on this another day. Tony Parker - reasons the French suck, part 2.

5) One album can't stop you because you're a nonstop rapping machine.




Now Shaq's rapping is awesome, mainly because Shaq is the man. He turns the table on another rapping athlete (and rapist) Kobe Bryant. This happened in the past week and served as my motivation.



You stay Classy Shaq Diesel. Kobe - tell me how my ass taste.

As a side note - Check out Jon Kitna's wikipedia page and pay close attention to his college career. Also worth noting is the fact that he spells his first name without the "H" because he thinks he's too cool for that.