So this is ... odd. Raphael Saadiq, a former singer from Tony! Toni! Tone! -- the California R&B group that serenaded most of my middle-school-dance makeout sessions -- apparently has a Denver-based videogame company called Illfonic. And that company has apparently created a videogame called "Ghetto Golf," a "Tiger Woods"-meets-"Grand Theft Auto" title that sends a strapped golfer hacking through the streets on makeshift holes, capping anyone and anything that stands in his way.
From the MTV.com story:
Get ready, world, for the first video game to mix gunplay with golf clubs -- and possibly the first video game to be inspired by the childhood hobby of an R&B superstar."Ghetto Golf" has its roots in Oakland California, where Raphael Saadiq, former star of 1990s R&B group Tony! Toni! Tone!, used to play golf on the streets, improvising golf holes with whatever he could find.
Decades later, Saadiq has his own Denver-based video game company, Illfonic, co-founded by his studio engineer, Brungardt. Their first project is "Ghetto Golf," a planned downloadable game featuring a scrappy young guy named Vonte in the Bay Area who has to find and complete tricky holes of golf that are set in the wilds of the city -- and in the line of fire of gangsters, cops and enemy golfers.
Needless to say, we'll be getting Saadiq on the phone ASAP to ask about the game and see if he'll sing "It Never Rains in Southern California" while I pretend to slow dance with the girl from social studies class.
