Ja Rule Puts A Curse On The Timberwolves, Which Has To Be Worth, What, At Least A Couple Extra Wins

Ja Rule performed as Saturday night’s halftime entertainment at the Timberwolves-Bucks game in Milwaukee. My favorite part of this is that whoever booked him did so as part of a “90s Night” promotion. Ja Rule’s debut album, the dreadful Venni Vetti Vecci, came out on June 1, 1999.

Ja Rule himself did not fail to observe this absurdity...

...though he’s also wrong to refer to himself as “a 2000 artist.” His one big hit, “ Holla Holla,” was tired by the end of 1999. He is a 1999 artist.

Anyway, his show sucked, not least because he is Ja Rule—last seen not really understanding what fraud is or that Fyre Festival, which he fronted, was it, and not really seen at all for most of the two decades prior to that—and likely to the surprise of absolutely no one, up to and including Ja Rule himself. This may be a rude opinion, but, Red Panda aside, regular-season NBA halftime shows generally are kind of awkward and not good! This is particularly true when the performer is the sort of nincompoop—Ja Rule—who will think the thing to do with an arena full of pink Wisconsonites waddling beerily in the direction of the nearest toilet is to try to draw them into some “Are... you... readaayyyyyyyy!”-type call-and-response shit and impromptu discussion about the arena’s booking practices before deigning to perform, ah, Ja Rule songs. To the extent that Milwaukee’s readayyyyyyyyness for Ja Rule songs ever actually existed, it certainly expired right around 20 years ago, like everyone else’s.

So, yeah, it sucked. At a certain point, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo came out from the locker room and began warming up on the court while Ja Rule was still, er, performing on another part of it.

This sort of thing isn’t all that unheard-of in NBA halftimes, honestly. But because it is Ja Rule—because, at this point in history, literally everything having to do with Ja Rule, up to and including saying or writing “Ja Rule,” both must be and qualifies as a devastating own at Ja Rule’s expense—the video of Antetokounmpo tossing up jumpshots while a hapless Ja Rule rapped badly in the background went viral on Twitter, and the story became Ja Rule bombing in spectacular fashion, rather than in the mildly cringey way that pretty much all non–Red Panda NBA regular-season halftime performers bomb. If it’s cheap and easy to say that this still qualifies as Ja Rule’s most successful public-facing venture this millennium, it’s also the case that I don’t actually care whether it’s true or not.

Anyway, at a certain point the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Twitter account decided to get in on the jokes, because this is what brands do now that we all live in hell.

For this mild burn, Wolves Twitter drew down upon itself the extremely sad and feeble wrath of Mr. Rule himself.

Ja Rule can’t even get mad online in an original way. This is a bootleg Based God Curse, from a guy who owes his career to America having once spent five minutes confusing him for DMX. Anyway this is a doofus who could not even stage a concert for rich people in the Bahamas without it turning into an actual humanitarian crisis; if he wants to apply the kiss of death to the Timberwolves, he should cut an Instagram story promoting their season-ticket packages.

Here is video of the entire wretched, not-even-notably-bad halftime show, for you to not watch ever.

The Bucks won by 12. This blog is over.