by JOE BABAR Staff Writer
Platinum League recently released rapper trading cards, which are fun to play with, but honestly ridiculous because of all the no-name artists on the cards. The cards come in packs of five. On the front of each card is each rapper’s face and stage name. The back of each card contains information about the rapper such as albums, real name, hometown, birthdate, record label, quote, and a scanner on the back that you can scan with your phone that will bring you to one of the artist’s song. The most well-known names included in the cards are Tupac, Biggie, Snoop Dogg, and the newest boy band group, Mindless Behavior. Most of the other rappers are completely unknown and nobodies, which is why this whole thing is a little ridiculous. “If nobody is known on the cards what is the point of trading, that doesn’t make sense,” said freshman Matt Benitez Almost every single rapper on the cards is an underground artist, so you cannot really trade these cards. Some of the unknown names on the cards include Auto, Shane, D. Cooley, and Tyran. The whole idea of the rapper trading cards is actually a really great idea, but they need to add in more well-known names. There are plenty of rappers out there that could be on the cards who are legends. Some of these rappers include Big Pun, Fat Joe, Method Man, GZA, RZA, Inspectah Deck, O.D.B, Eminem, Ice Cube, Dr Dre, Young Jeezy, Eazy E, Puffy, Big L, and more. However, all these rappers would have to allow Platinum League to use their likeness on the cards. Also, it would be a good idea if Platinum League ranked each rapper’s card. This would make the cards easier to trade and more fun to trade. The ranking should be in order of popularity, or most records sold, and they should be ranked out of five stars. This would also help people who are really into hip-hop and rap, but do not know so much about hip-hop and rap to trade. Not everyone is going to know everything about every rap artist, so the whole ranking system idea would help out those who want to participate, but do not have the knowledge of the rappers to participate. “Yeah, that would be a better idea, to rank the cards. It would make everyone’s experience easier,” said freshman David Angley. No doubt that the rapping trading cards will eventually make it big in the trading card industry. As long as they make a few changes and maybe take some of these unknown and nobody rappers out, the rapping trading cards will definitely be in a local store near you. You can purchase packs of the Platinum League cards or even preview the cards at www.PlatinumLeague.com.