Denzel Curry Celebrates Being “First Rapper Played In Space”

It's been about 15 years since Denzel Curry first came to prominence as an extremely young rap monster in SpaceGhostPurrp's Raider Klan crew. Curry was only about 16 when that happened, which means he has now been rap-famous for nearly half his life. In that time, Curry has done a great many amazing things, and now he has a new accomplishment to trumpet. As Curry himself puts it, he's the "First Rapper Played in SPACE N***A!" That claim isn't 100% scientific, as we'll get into below, but it's still pretty legit.

Right now, the unbelievably charming crew of NASA's Artemis II craft is on a 10-day lunar flyby mission — the first manned voyage to the general vicinity of the moon since 1972. (I would sincerely recommend Barry Petchesky's genuinely stirring Defector stories about that mission.) Right now, the Artemis crew is preparing to return to Earth after their trip around the other side of the moon. In a social media post yesterday, NASA shared a short video from inside the capsule and identified the astronauts' "wakeup song." It's "Tokyo Drifting," a 2019 single from the British band Glass Animals that features a reliably fired-up Denzel Curry guest verse.

As you might expect, Denzel Curry is pretty fucking psyched about this.

Glass Animals also had some things to say about the honor. In a comment on NASA's Instagram post, the band wrote, "omg no freaking way i love u guys. me and my cousins and my mom made popcorn and watched the launch. you guys are inspiring us all down here on earth. ps sorry to hear about the toilet but glad it is fixed."

Regarding that toilet: Artemis II is the first lunar craft ever to have an onboard toilet, but that toilet broke when they were minutes into the flight. In a post on their Instagram, Glass Animals (presumably jokingly) revealed that they were allowed on Artemis II during a 2024 tour and that they might've accidentally left a vial of their tears on board. They seem to think that their tears might've broken the toilet. These things happen? In any case, those aren't the only tears on Artemis II.

So back to the question: Is Denzel Curry really the first rapper played in space? Is "Tokyo Drifting" the first song with a rap verse? Your crack research team at Stereogum has been unable to figure out a definitive answer. Astronauts have been bringing their own mixtapes into space — cassette compilations of the music that they want to hear, not audio of them freestyling over the "Drop It Like It's Hot" beat — since the '60s. When he was on the Apollo 11 mission, for instance, Neil Armstrong listened to a tape copy of Music Out Of The Moon: Music Unusual Featuring The Theremin, a 1947 album from composer Harry Revel and bandleader Les Baxter. (There's no rapping on that one.)

Over the last 50 years, astronauts have been able to listen to whatever music they wanted, and we don't know what music they picked. They could've been listening to 2Pac or Company Flow or Lil Baby up there. I hope they were! But if that's what they were jamming up there, we don't have any record of it. We do know that NASA transmitted Missy Elliott's "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" to Venus in 2024, which is a cool publicity stunt but which is not the same thing as astronauts choosing to play that song in space. As far as we know, though, Curry is the first rapper who was definitely, verifiably played on a crewed flight in space.

On the Artemis II mission, NASA has been waking the astronauts up with a different song every day. Over the weekend, the crew was disappointed because Chappell Roan's "Pink Pony Club got cut off before the chorus. Fortunately, "Tokyo Drifting" did make it to the Curry verse.

But wait! Hold on! On day two of the mission, the wakeup song was John Legend's 2008 single "Green Light," which features André 3000! So was André the first rapper played in space? He did make ATLiens, so that would be thematically appropriate. But he's not on the beginning of the song, and I can't find any video of that song playing in the ship, so we don't know if it got cut off before the verse.

The same is true of the day-six wakeup song, Mandisa's "Good Morning," which has a rap verse from Christian rocker TobyMac. On day five, the wakeup song was "Working Class Heroes (Work)," a track from (yikes) André's fellow Dungeon Family veteran CeeLo Green. He's a rapper, but he doesn't really rap on that song. At least theoretically, all these guys can claim to be the first rapper played in space. It would be fucked up if Denzel Curry made his claim and then had to walk it back because TobyMac beat him by a day.

Anyway! The crew is scheduled to return on Friday, so there's at least a sliver of a chance that Feist's "My Moon My Man" will be a wakeup song. Yesterday, Feist celebrated that song, now a trending hit thanks to Heated Rivalry, with an Instagram message and video of her signing a new vinyl reissue.