King Kaufman's Sports Daily

ESPN's terrific "Ali Rap" may overplay the champ's influence on hip-hop but gets everything else right by letting him speak.

Read more: Sports, Books, Boxing, TV, Muhammad Ali, TV Reviews, King Kaufman, Sports Daily

Dec. 7, 2006 | Muhammad Ali is a paper saint now. Behind the mask of his Parkinson's syndrome the 64-year-old former heavyweight champion is a safe, nearly silent figure to be revered and admired, one of those icons on whom you can project whatever you want him to be, make him yours, the way you can with Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr.

Fierce and rebellious, brave and stoic, profane, devout, traitorous, patriotic, old skool or new, athlete or activist, African-American icon or citizen of the world. Yes. You bet.

Saints have their hagiographies and Ali has had his share. The latest is "Ali Rap," an hourlong special airing on ESPN Saturday night. The show, also available on DVD, is a companion to a pretty Taschen art book filled with the champ's quotations and designed by George Lois, who created the legendary Esquire cover in 1968 that portrayed Ali as St. Sebastian, wearing boxing gear and shot with arrows.

The show, hosted by Chuck D, starts from the shaky premise that Ali was a sort of godfather of rap and ends up being just another of those straightforward chronological biographies TV does so many of, only told in sound bites.

It's wonderful. Because the sound bites are all Ali's, and other than a few short introductions by Chuck D, "Ali Rap" wastes nary a second on anything other than Ali's words. The show is edited crisply but not showily. The focus is Ali.

"Before I heard Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash," says host Chuck D, the only other person whose words we hear, "before James Brown was singin' 'Papa Don't Take No Mess,' there was Muhammad Ali, riffin' on the human condition."

The show's promotional materials play up the pioneer of rap angle more than the show does, and the show in turn plays it up more than the book does. But Chuck D mentions Ali's "rhyming and flow" several times, and the roster of celebrities who voice some of Ali's words includes a healthy dose of rappers, including Ludacris, Rakim and MC Lyte.

A smorgasbord of actors, athletes, comedians and news anchors also recite the quotes, though none of them can compete with the copious film clips of Ali in his prime, which are what make "Ali Rap" wonderful.

Chuck D implies that the rhyming and boasting in rap descend from the champ, when the far more direct influence came from Jamaican dance hall toasting.

Next page: We think athletes today are flamboyant. Check out these old clips of Ali