In my previous post I had addressed when Sprite did an ad campaign with Voltron and hip-hop. This time, I will touch on some other Sprite commercials based on The Five Deadly Venoms.
The Five Deadly Venoms is a 1978 kung-fu film about a dying master enlisting his final student to check on the activities of five former pupils, each of whom possess unique forms of kung-fu.
In 1999, Sprite put out these commercials featuring rappers portraying the Venoms and the villain.
Like the Voltron ad campaign, each rapper plays a part in the ads.
Blond Bee – Eve
Firefly – Angie Martinez
Ladybug – Mia X
Praying Mantis – Amil
Black Widow – Roxanne Shante
The Villain – Kool Keith
I am not so sure if Sprite went through a nostalgia kick in the late 1990’s with these ads, and that is also including the Voltron commercials, and the use of hip-hop in them as well. Of course, these Five Deadly Venoms ads were also cool in their own way. Unlike the Voltron ads, it doesn’t seem like each of these rappers are representing coasts as most of them are from the East Coast, whereas only one of them is from the South, and that is Mia X. It’s possible that Roxanne Shante was in the role that Afrika Bambaataa was in the previous campaign as she was a pioneer female rapper from the 1980’s, and of course with Kool Keith portraying the master, he was around in that era with his group, The Ultramagnetic MC’s.
Not to mention that there was also a small cameo from Millie Jackson.
I must say that my favorite ad out of all of them was the one with Roxanne and Keith, as they battle-rapped in the midst of a fight sequence.
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