“This is me saying this is who I am. This is my story,” the actor-turned-aspiring rapper told PEOPLE before taking the stage at Las Vegas club LAVO.

The video speaks for itself. It’s an amateur video so the sound quality sucks. One can’t expect Phoenix to sound good. But he looks like a drunk college kid who went onstage on a dare. It’s almost as bad as Dee Dee Ramone’s ill-advised stab at rap stardom.