Star Wars Gangsta Rap
2000 film
The "Star Wars Gangsta Rap" is a parody song based on the original Star Wars trilogy. The song was later popularized as a Flash-animated music video and was the first winner of the Audience Choice Award in the Lucasfilm-sponsored Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.
History
The "Star Wars Gangsta Rap" started out as a song, written by Jason Brannon and Chris Crawford, with vocals by Brannon, drum machine by Crawford and Leonard, and keyboard by Brian Leonard. The group billed themselves as Bentframe.
Animator Thomas Lee discovered the rap in 2000 and used it as a basis to practice his developing Flash skills. This became the first (and most widely seen) version of the video. After showing the finished results to Bentframe, they together formed BentTV.
The song was the top video at Newgrounds for six months.
Due to the project's success, BentTV later created an improved version, referred to as the Special Edition, which debuted at the 2004 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards. The audio track was not changed, but the visuals were completely redrawn, with improved color and shading and more detailed motion, all while emulating the relevant scenes in the movies more closely and adding more. The improvement in animation is analogous to Industrial Light & Magic's 1997 Special Edition film touch-ups.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Star Wars Gangsta Rap” is 2000 film. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Star, Wars and Gangsta, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2000 film” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7601132. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2000, 2004 and 1997.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Star Wars Gangsta Rap”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Star Wars Gangsta Rap primary sources, Star Wars Gangsta Rap archive and Star research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Star Wars Gangsta Rap”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Star Wars Gangsta Rap” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.