Donkey Kong 64 - Development and Audio

Development and Audio

The music for the game was composed by Grant Kirkhope, who was asked to help at the beginning of the project. The intro cut scene of the game is a music video that features a full-length song with vocals, entitled the "DK Rap" which was written by Kirkhope and was performed by George Andreas and Chris Sutherland. The song was criticized by many (EGM, Error Macro), and the line "His coconut gun can fire in spurts. If he shoots ya, it's gonna hurt!" was named the fourth worst game line ever in the January 2002 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

The rap also features the line "this Kong's one hell of a guy" (referring to Chunky Kong) of which is considered a profane explicative in most English speaking regions and being that Donkey Kong 64 is an E-rated game, this generated a small shock in observers of the song. However, "hell" as an intensifier is not considered offensive in Great Britain (which is where Rare is located). A remixed version of the "DK Rap" was in Super Smash Bros. Melee as part of the Kongo Jungle stage, in which the word "hell" was replaced with "heck". This version was also one of the selectable songs in Donkey Konga, but only has the parts of the first three characters. The remixed version heard in Melee was also in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The song is performed by James W. Norwood, Jr., in Melee, who used several different voices and effects for the remix in that game. There was also a scrapped level from another Rare platformer Banjo-Kazooie where it was known as "Fungus Forest". It was later made for Donkey Kong 64, under the slightly altered level name "Fungi Forest" and used the same music.