Joaquin Phoenix Pursues Music Career… As a Rapper?

Not too long ago, Joaquin Phoenix announced that he would be leaving his acting career for good and was setting out to become a musician. Considering his shady appearance (you literally couldn’t recognize the guy behind his lumberjack beard and big shades), there were some doubts, but Phoenix is now proving his seriousness about his musical endeavors.

Either that, or Phoenix is showing us what can happen when you “take the brown acid.” Check out more on the story as well as another video below the jump….

The acid seems more likely with the ex-actor’s announcement that he will now be known as rapper Joke P, and his first record will be produced by P. Diddy. Phoenix made a public appearance Jan. 17 in Las Vegas to (attempt to) perform one of his songs. You can check him out in another video below, where he falls off stage…

I know it’s difficult, but you’re going to have to stop gagging/laughing so you can read the next part of this amazing hip-hop fairy tale.

Before the show, Phoenix told People Magazine:

“This is me saying this is who I am. This is my story.”

Apparently, this story begins with Joke P trying to sound like a watered-down Lil’ Wayne, using choppy lines like, “It’s gettin’ hot in hurr” and ends with a tragic downfall. No, really. Phoenix literally busted his short segment and proceeded to bust ass with a tumble off the stage (to everyone’s not-so-secret delight). But I can respect an artist trying to do his thing, so we’ll call it his, umm… ‘grand finale,’ or maybe a ‘leap of faith’:

Now, the guy may have little or no sense of flow, but he could get better …right? Or maybe not.

So far I’ve been indifferent to the success of commercial hip-hop artists, but now I’m worried for them. Perhaps this is a super-intelligent ploy to expose the pitfalls (get it, pit-fall? THANK YOU JOKE P) of mainstream rap using a William-Hung-is-a-legitimate-artist-type strategy.

The fact that Phoenix’s brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, is filming a documentary about the Joaquin-to-Joke P transformation indicates that this could be a subversive project to prove a point about the corporate film and music industries. And the name Joke P itself could be a subtle implication of some undisclosed shenanigans.

Or it could be that Joaquin really does believe he can make it in the rap game, and Casey just knows solid-gold comedy when he sees it.

Whatever happens with this, one thing is clear: somebody’s gettin’ famous for this funny shit.

What do you think about the validity of Joaquin’s new career! Do you think he’s as serious as Suge Knight? This is all a big hip-hop hoax? Or something else?