Chuck D's Video "Ali Rap" Theme

Mohammed Ali the world's most famous boxer of the 20th century was arguably a rapper of his time. "Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee", Ali used his "rap" like music to the ears of his opponents - remember Shakespeare's "if music be the food of love play on". These rhymes were all part of Ali's clever psychological tools to get into the psyche of his opponents that he could beat them.

Some people may say that Ali was taunting his opponents but if you examine his rhymes, it much resembles the rap that rappers use to tell the stories of their environments. There's a ESPN documentary "Ali Rap", set to Chuck D's music as the theme, that examines if Ali unwittingly invented rap music by his public pronouncements. While this may be controversial, it is one that's worthy of discussion - Ali would have it no other way.

You can read about the Ali's relationship and rap in a new book, Ali Rap: Muhammed Ali, The First Heavyweight Champion of Rap, edited by George Lois.

If you are a famous athlete such as Michael Phelps that listens to Chuck D's rap music, download new Vanguard rap music here.

Olympian Michael Phelps Inspirational Rap Songs

As the world watched Michael Phelps prepare for his swim meets at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Summer Games, it was intriguing to learn that some of this great Olympian's inspiration came from the rap songs he listened to on his iPod.

Every camera angle showed Michael Phelps at the pool side during warm-ups, cool downs and prior to competition with his iPod headphones. Michael's iPod was as much a part of his uniform as his goggles and swim cap. Observers said that Phelps listens to rap music to help motivate him before a race.

Phelps listens to rap music from Lil' Wayne, Jay-Z, Young Jeezy, Eminem and Outkast. It's really cool that someone as pumped as Michael would draw his motivation from rap songs, especially since he was able to earn 7-world records out of his total 8-gold medals. This surpasses great athletes such as, American Mark Spitz's, Australian, Ian Thorpe.

Ian Thorpe retired Australian swimming great dismissed Michael Phelp's ambitious claim of bettering Spitz's historic 1972 Olympic Games haul of seven gold medals as impossible because Michael's competition was insurmountable.

In addition to listening to rap music, Thorpe's skepticism prompted Michael to hang his doubts on his wall and etch them on his brain as even more motivation to achieve his remarkable feat.

If you are an athlete that listens to rap music for motivation, get new Vanguard rap music for your iPod or MP3 player by clicking here.