Jensen Karp, who went viral this week when he claimed to have found shrimp tails in his cereal, is getting the attention he didn’t quite get as a rapper.
As Hot Karl, he recorded tracks for what was supposed to be his major label debut, Your Housekeeper Hates You. It included collaborations with artists like will.i.am, Redman, Fabolous and Kanye West.
Karp parted ways with Interscope after it declined to release the album, citing scheduling conflicts. He believes the label wanted to focus its resources on pushing another white rapper, Eminem.
“I didn't get why they could just put us all out and market us differently,” he told High Snobiety in 2016. "But as a white rapper, back then, you got pigeonholed, and that's enough to cause some friction. So who knows? But in the end, I'm happy it played out the way it did.”
Karp made headlines this week when he tweeted about finding what appeared to be sugar-coated shrimp tails in a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. (General Mills said it is investigating but the alleged seafood did not come from its facility.)
Ummmm @CTCSquares - why are there shrimp tails in my cereal? (This is not a bit) pic.twitter.com/tTjiAdrnVp
— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 22, 2021
Hot Karl’s 2003 track “Armand Assante” was produced by West, who had yet to breakout. “It's a soul sample in line with the music he was putting out back then,” said Karp. “It was all very sample-based and way less progressive than anything he does now.”
In fact, paying for a car service for West inspired Karp to title his memoir Kanye West Owes Me $300 (and Other True Stories From a White Rapper Who ALMOST Made It Big).
Karp has also recorded collaborations with Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath ("The Burbs") and Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda (“Like Riding a Bike").
On Wednesday, Chance the Rapper tweeted about his connection to Karp. “Fun fact: the Cinnamon Toast Crunch shrimp guy gave me 5 racks to shoot a video back when I still had a nose ring,” he recalled. A video clip shows Karp – then an executive Jash – handing Chance a $5,000 cheque for his video “Na Na.”
Fun fact: the Cinnamon Toast Crunch shrimp guy gave me 5 racks to shoot a video back when I still had a nose ring pic.twitter.com/LOeMogs8pP
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) March 24, 2021