Tom Hanks, an enduring inspiration for hip-hop rhymes. Photo: NBC

Hive Five: Our Daily Listicle of Musical Musings

Now that you’ve spent a lot of time with Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, it’s safe to say that you think the album signals the talented arrival of Marvin Gaye’s secret musical love child or is this year’s overrated flash-in-the-pan. But more importantly, it’s the only album R&B album of 2012 to include a song that invokes the name and imagery of Tom Hanks’ titular Forrest Gump character. So in the spirit of spurious connections, here are five rap chaps who are also on record as digging Hanks’s acting chops.

1. Heems, “Womyn”

An ode to the fairer sex, Das Racist man Heems proves that he’s one of those sensitive understanding types as he helpfully explains how “Women like to watch You’ve Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.” Elsewhere in the song he also drops the bombshell that in between Nora Ephron flicks girls like to spend their time catching up on Dawson’s Creek and Beverly Hills 90210.

2. Gang Starr, “Put Up or Shut Up”

Cashback alert! Dropping a slick reference to money making Hanks, Guru brags about how “Like Tom Hanks I earn long bank and Cast you Away.” Consider that two Hanks references for the bargain price of one.

3. 9th Wonder feat. Khrysis, “Make It Big”

We might not be talking about the slickest ever nod to Hanks, but the hook to former Little Brother producer 9th Wonder’s “Make It Big” gets right to the point: “I’m a make it big/ Like Tom Hanks, n****a, I’m a make it big.” It’s a shame 9th didn’t sample Hanks’s version of “Heart And Soul” as played on the oversized keyboard though.

4. Dom Kennedy, “When You See Love”

New school west coast rap kid Dom Kennedy falls back on the hashtag rap style to fulfill his Hanks quota on this laid-back introspective lament. The quip? “I’m in a league of my own… Tom Hanks/ Good people going great places.”

5. Jay Electronica, “A Million in the Morning”

The most hyped rapper to ever tap up a Rothschild, Jay Electronica muses on whether he’s “conscious or dreaming/ Peeping Tom Hanks, Angels and Demons.” Ill-founded speculation: After also rapping “blame Netflix” later in the song, is Electronica’s Tom Hanks infatuation the reason why he’s never gotten around to finishing his debut album?