Boxer's Delight

Muhammad Ali could float like a butterfly, sting like a bee and sing like a man who couldn’t read music, keep a beat or stay in tune. In 1963, before becoming the heavyweight champion of the world (and ditching the name Cassius Clay), Ali recorded a spoken-word album, I Am the Greatest!, that features hilariously bad covers of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” and Sam Cooke’s “The Gang’s All Here,” not to mention a near constant stream of gloating and potshots at rivals — kind of like a Kanye West album without the Auto-Tune.
A Hollywood Pixie Goes Punk

You probably know her as Will Smith’s tiny, spunky wife. But if you attended Ozzfest ’05 or the European leg of Britney Spears’ 2004 tour, you know her as Jada Koren, lead singer of the heavy-metal band Wicked Wisdom. “I can explore more of the bad witch as well as the good witch,” Jada Pinkett Smith has said of her side job screaming onstage to the accompaniment of thrashing guitar. “For me to stay balanced and sane, I need a place where that bad witch can live and not be judged.” (Never mind that the spiky-haired teens at Ozzfest were reportedly all to happy to judge her, and not in a good way). The band, which formed in L.A. in 2003 and cites Sevendust, Prince, Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco as influences, has appeared on Late Show with David Letterman and will reportedly release its second album at the end of this year.

























