Flow Like a Superhero, Sting Like a Killer Bee: the Hip Hop--Comic Book Nexus
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Flow like a superhero, sting like a Killer Bee: The Hip Hop--Comic Book Nexus Jason Lee Oakes – IASPM-US meeting, Chapel Hill, 2014 On the classic 1995 album Liquid Swords—pictured here in the center square with cover art by Milestone Comics’ Denys Cowan—the GZA weaves together dense narratives that explore a unique space between urban street stories and mystical Eastern exoticism, (something like the rap equivalent to Dr. Strange from the Marvel Comics universe). The central concept of the album, quoting GZA himself, is “being lyrically sharp, flowing like liquid metal,” with his words likened to the fabled head-chopping liquid sword of the title. The theme of my paper today is the shared liquidity of hip hop and comic books—and the liquidity between them. Comic book references are omnipresent in hip hop lyrics, and sometimes serve as basis for entire personas, alter-egos, and concept albums. Take for example Jean Grae, MF Doom and his many offshoots, Ghostface as Tony Starks, Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come, Inspectah Deck’s Czarface (his project with 7L and Esoteric), and so on. These crossovers reach back to the earliest days of hip hop, such as when Superman makes appearances in “To The Beat” by Lady B, “Funk You Up” by the Sequence, and the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” Taking it to the visual realm, hip hop’s founding fathers— Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force—often dressed like a band of otherworldly superheroes. Taking it back to very birth of hip hop itself at Kool Herc’s house parties, one finds Clark Kent incarnate. According to Herc’s sister, Cindy Campbell, Clark Kent was one of the first b-boys, a young man who “wore glasses and looked like Clark Kent,” who ruled the floor with “a dance he did called the Superman, like he was flying, actually dancing and flying.” This ability to transmutate, creating a powerful alter-ego through transcendent fantasies of power, is perhaps the key link between comics and hip hop from which all other their similarities stem. In an interview published last year, Fab 5 Freddy described his childhood love for comic books and for the first major black superhero—the Black Panther—a character from the fictional African country of Wakanda, the world’s only producer of vibranium, a metal that gains mystical energy by absorbing vibrations. Likewise, Fab 5 absorbed the energy of comic books and fed them into his graffiti and hip hip advocacy: “the whole comic-book concept of adapting this alterative persona was a big inspiration on the development of hip-hop culture…Since I’m the fastest DJ, I’m going to call myself Grandmaster Flash. You’d create this alternative urban superhero personal who could do all the cool things you fantasize about doing—graffiti or rap or break-dancing.” Exhibit two is DMC of Run-DMC. Once a self-described “shy kid” who was picked on and teased in school, he related to characters like Spiderman and Superman. From his own account, Peter Parker and Clark Kent assuaged his sense of shame and inspired him to take on the role of superhero himself, a hero with “Devastating Mic Control” (today he uses the acronym to stand for Daryl Makes Comics, his own line of comic books). Other parallels between comics and hip hop: 1) Both value a precise sense of place. Physical settings and local lifeways are much more than mere backdrops; places often function as characters in in its own right. How many people know Compton thanks to NWA, or know Asgard thanks to Thor? Not only that, but places are routinely remade in these two worlds—on one hand, the Boogie Down Bronx, Strong Island, Shaolin, the Dirty South, etc. and on the other hand—Smallville, Metropolis, Gotham; the latter two are of course stand-ins for New York City, the birthplace of both comic books and hip hop. 2) Historically, both forms, with notable exceptions, have been the domain of boys and young men. Neither is known for being terribly progressive when it comes to gender roles and treatment of sexuality (again, exceptions abound). 3) Both fly in the face Romantic individualism; instead, they constantly highlight the role of collaboration and contingency, with shifting configurations between artists and slippage between roles. Much like the split between writers and illustrators (including pencillers, inkers, colorists) in comics, hip hop music is created in the sonic space between MC lyricists and musical “colorists”—not only DJs but also producers, beatmakers, turntablists, and so on. And finally, 4) both for have suffered for their low social status and association with marginalized communities—Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century, in the first case, and in the second, black inhabitants of post-industrial spaces that had largely been written off in the 70s and early 80s. In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham published a book called Seduction of the Innocent, using pseudo-science to link juvenile delinquency to comic books. The US Senate stepped in, and the industry was forced to self regulate—forming the CCA, or Comics Code Authority, to place their seal of approval on acceptable comics. In 1987, Tipper Gore, a BA in psychology, published Raising PG Kids in a X-Rated World. The book took aim at various musical genres, but its effects were felt most strongly in hip hop. Again, congressional hearings followed along with a fun new acronym—the PMRC—while the industry policed its products with a seal of disapproval on unacceptable records. The rest of the paper will be based around a case study of Ghostface Killah’s 2013 project, Twelve Reasons To Die. All of the above factors—locale, gender trouble, collaboration, marginalization, and boundary-pushing content—come into play in this project, plus some other watery factors which I’ll analyze shortly. The genesis of 12 Reasons was an idea by the Wu-Tang Clan’s producer and spiritual leader, the RZA to do a crossover hip hop and comic book project. Perhaps due to his time spent composing and executive producing film scores, the project took on a cinematic scope from the beginning. The RZA went on to form a team of writers, graphic artists, musicians, and Ghostface himself in the starring role as MC, lyrcist, and subject of the 6-part comic book series. Instead of going for marquee name writers, RZA chose the Ashcan Comics team— Patrick Kindlon and Matthew Rosenberg—a former punk rocker and music video director and publicist, respectively, who worked hand in hand with the musicians in shaping the story. Kindlon and Rosenberg then contracted twenty acclaimed upcoming artists—each with their own distinctive visual style—to draw panels, covers, and transition splashes. Structurally, the 12 songs on Ghostface’s 12 Reasons album is mirrored by the 12 parts of the comic—each of the six books is divided into 2 distinct section—with the artistic style shifting noticeably, often radically, between each of the 12 parts, just as the musical backing shifts between each musical track. On the musical end, RZA fills the roles of executive producer and, on some tracks, narrator—the aural equivalent of the invisible comic book narrator. Adrian Younge and his band Venice Dawn were hired to write and record the music. Once a hip hop producer, in the late 1990s Younge began to explore live instrumentation, simulating the music he loved to sample—classic soul, Spaghetti Westerns, Italian giallo soundtracks, and psychedelic rock. His breakthrough came when he was chosen to compose the score and write songs for Black Dynamite (2009). The blaxploitation parody and homage is so uncanny that it seems to have entered the blaxplotation canon itself— with Younge’s music a key element in its success (in 2012, the Cartoon Network aired a full-season animated spin-off with a second season due to air later this year). The narrative of 12 Reasons to Die is an origin story—a storytelling genre beloved by comic book readers and writers—that fits neatly into the existing Ghostface Killah narrative. Each issue of 12 Reasons is split into two parts—the first part following a man named Tony Starks in 1970s Italy; the second part follows a young crate-digging DJ named Migdal who’s been hired to track down 12 records under mysterious circumstances. Tony Starks is, of course, the non-superhero name of Iron Man with an appended “s”, and also, the alter-ego Ghostface Killah frequently inhabits in song lyrics stretching back to 1996’s Iron Man. In the story, Starks is an enforcer for the fictional DeLuca crime family in Italy. Owing to the family’s nepotism and racism, the twelve bosses refuse to promote Starks despite the fact that he’s their most ruthless and invaluable soldier. When Starks splits off and starts his own crew, taking over much of the DeLuca business in the process, the twelve conspire to have him murdered. They draw Starks to a record pressing plant—a plant Starks has purchased in an attempt to go legit—kill him and melt his body into a vat of vinyl to hide the evidence, pressing twelve records out of his remains as a demented souvenir. The punch line is that whenever one of the records is played, the “Ghostface Killah” of Tony Starks is animated and brutally slays one of the twelve bosses. A couple decades later, the crate digger is hired to track down the haunted slabs of vinyl, resulting in lovingly rendered bloodshed and mayhem when the needle is dropped on each record in turn.