I went with a little homegrown haircut from Chocolate Snowflake this week. Some people told me that I was channeling Kid. Nah.
Some people thought I was reminiscing on Buggin’ Out from the Spike Lee joint ‘Do The Right Thing’. Still nah.
Buggin’ Out’s twisted lock steez deserves a salute from the classic Brooklyn barbershop KiNapp on DeKalb Avenue. That is prA’Li where Spike had Giancarlo Esposito’s ‘do done.
My cut was inspired by Franklin Armstrong who was a classmate of Peppermint Patty and Marcie. Patty and Marcie were America’s first lesbian couple in mainstream media. Why else was Marcie always calling Patty ‘sir’?
Anyhoo, Franklin was my dude. He was bussed in to a school with all white kids and he didn’t trip. Franklin had a silent swag, plus Peppermint Patty held him dddddown.
The SlaughterHouse collective busts a lot of people in the head when they formed Voltron.
Sometimes the most obvious shit be the shit that we never see because its right in front of our faces.
Hip-Hop has always excelled in the arena of posse tracks, but those projects were always one-offs or remixes. It wasn’t until the Wu-tang formed that we had the opportunity to experience Hip-Hop like it was during the era of the Cold Crush Brothers, the Funk Four Plus+ 1 More, and the Furious 5. These groups showed us the heights of rap using techniques like harmonizing, slick wordplay, audience interaction and basic unity. That was before rap music was making any good money for the tall Israelis.
The second the t.I.’s started making big paper from rap they looked for individual stars to place on posters an the supergroups were all fractured from outside and from within. The money that came into rap had folks scrambling just to get a check. You have to be careful what some folks will do to get a check. They are liable to steal your rhymebook the first chance they get. Instead of unity and rocking crowds in unison the industrial music complex made rappers into war machines and set everyone off to battling. It took us a long time, and in reality, the collapse of the industrial music complex in order to have the chance to see rappers come back together again like SlaughterHouse has done.
SlaughterHouse = The Fantastic 4
For the reason that they are bringing the idea back into the rap game that people from different cities and regions can posse up and be focused on the same goal. The Fantastic 4 is Marvel Comics legacy title. The FF may not be the strongest group in the comics universe but they have been able to thwart Galactus, the Skrulls and Annhilus because they work as team. This has been the SlaughterHouse’s crowning achievement to this point. If they really do release their group album this summer 2009 could be the year of Hip-Hop’s rebirth (no Lil’ Wang).
So now I asked myself what other rap supergroups could I relate to some of my favorite comic titles. All respect to Dart Adams from Poisonous Paragraphs who is the master at this shit here, but I’m partial to books drawn by John Byrne. I thought about Random Axe which is the supergroup composed of Sean Price, Guilty Simpson and Black Milk. I’m going to relate this group to the Avengers because that was the one superhero collective that had the most hardbody brothers.
The Black Panther was down with them as well as the Falcon and even War Machine spent some time in Avengers mansion. Dart, correct me if I’m wrong but did Luke Cage get some burn with the Avengers at some point? Sean P is definitely on some Power Man shit. Fam should do a photoshoot dressed up in the Power Man suit. [ll] to wearing man-dex.
It was rough on a young fanboy coming up back in the day. There weren’t really any Black superheroes that I could relate to. Black superheroes hardly ever had anything sexy about their steez. Plus they were all called ‘Black’ as if anyone would confuse Black Lightning with another dude named Lightning. WTF?!? Dudes like Green Arrow and Green Lantern used the green in their powers and their costuming. Black Lightning was just a brother from the ‘hood that made Wonder Woman go hide her purse after he walked into the Hall of Justice.
After listening to that track ‘4 Minutes 2 Lockdown‘ on the Blackout 2 album I decided to call Redman, Method Man, Raekwon and GhostFace the Alpha Flight.
Some of you fanboy nerdcore purists (read: Dart Adams) will tell me no effin’ way to this connection because Alpha Flight was a team formed out of Canadian superheroes, but I have to ask you all if there are four rappers from Canada as lethal as Red, Meth, Rae and Ghost? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. Drake, Kardinal Offishall, Tabi Bonney, and Saukrates don’t add up to the superpowers that are required to be Alpha Flight. Not even if I added former Mount Royaler Carl ‘Jackpot’ Chery to their ranks.
One of the offbeat comic book superhero teams was the Doom Patrol which was like the DC Comics version of the Fantastic 4. I see the cRap music version of Doom Patrol being offbeat too because they are fronted by the man in the mask called DOOM.
DOOM would posse up with Madlib, MC Serch and Kurious. Plus the ghost of J Dilla would be on the MPC-3000. And unlike the DC Comics title these dudes wouldn’t get canceled. Their fan base is strong enough to keep them on the road all year long.
How many cRap dudes have the letter ‘X’ in their stage name? Those are the cats that will become the X-Men. DMX, Xibit, Sadat-X, Brother J and Lin Que (from X-Clan).
There is enough pro-Black shit going on in their rhymes along with the classic 7:30 tendencies of Wolverine that Dark Man X brings. I like this group a lot.
On the heels of the X-Men I give you the Next Men. The Next Men comic series was created by my favorite comic book artist John Byrne. The Next Men were genetically enhanced humans that would ultimately lead up to the final fate of humanity. The Next Men in cRap music have that burden on their shoulders as well. Will cRap music as we have come to know it be changed for the better or ruined forever?
The Next Men will be artists like Drake, Kid Cudi, Wale and the girl that smacked the shit out of Charles Hamilton. She is definitely a superheroine. She did what no other rapper has been able to accomplish up to this point and that was to make the pink panther Charles Hamilton shut the fuck up.
Briana Latrise is the real superhero in this cRap shit.
I can see Patrick Ewing taking an NBA franchise to the promised land and he never looked more Jamaican than the years he rocked that Red Sea part in his hair.
