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ROGUE STATE OF MIND:
Choosing An MC Name
So you're an aspiring rapper and you need to come up with a hard-hitting name for yourself. You want a name that captures the public's attention... a name that says "Dammit, I AM somebody!" You want a name that strikes fear in the hearts of your enemies. You want a name that puts you on the FBI's "10 Most Wanted List." Forget names like Capone, Noreaga, or Tragedy Khadafi... you need a fresh name that places you firmly within the "Axis of Evil." You need a name like Osama or Saddam.... the kind of name that gets your phone tapped and your bank account traced. But before you come up with a name for yourself, let's first take a brief trip through the history of rap naming conventions. Because it goes a little deeper than you might expect.
The first rappers -- who were deejays in Jamaica's Rocksteady scene of the late 1960s -- started the trend of using politically-loaded names by adopting English titles of nobility such as Lord Tanamo, King Stitt, Count Machuki, and Sir Lord Comic. Being that Jamaica was once a British colony, it is easy to see why these titles were quickly be coopted by reggae artists. Early rocksteady deejays were a sort of underground royalty in their own right. They commanded the attention of their musical subjects with powerful musical artillery. As reggae moved into the 1970s, there was a proliferation of nobility-based titles such as Lord Sassafrass, The Viceroys, and Prince Jazzbo. Even producers, such as King Tubby and Maximillian, got in on the action.
With the newfound creative freedom of the 1970s, reggae titles branched out into the realms of religion, crime, and the military. Jamaica's unique indigenous religion -- Rastafarianism -- spawned titles such as Jah Screw, Jah Shaka, Jah Stitch, Nicodemus, Michael Prophet, The Prophets, Ras Michael and The Suns of Negus, and Ras Shiloh. Some reggae artists even went so far as to combine the earthly nobility of English titles and the lofty spirituality of Rastafarianism, as in the cases of Prince Far I and Prince Alla.
While reggae artists showed a real knack for flipping titles of nobility and religion, the abundance of titles based on the world of crime and violence was the main antecedent of hip hop naming conventions. Well before Capone-N-Noreaga, Jamaica had the legendary Dennis Alcapone, as well as Dillinger and Josie Wales. But not surprisingly, reggae artists showed even more desire to coopt and subvert the government side of the cops-and-robbers battle. Many of reggae's brightest stars adopted military and crime-fighting titles such as Clint Eastwood, Lone Ranger, Brigadier Jerry, Admiral Tibet, Lieutenant Stitchie, General Echo, General Levy, and General Degree. Much like Prince Far I and Prince Alla's mixture of earthly and spiritual, this naming convention was not without a touch of irony, as General Saint paradoxically mixed titles both holy and profane.
In the first wave of rap titles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, artists took the idea of flipping criminal/military names to the next level by coopting titles found in American secret societies. The first and most well-known is Grandmaster Flash. But the immediate proliferation of this style of title, among hip hop's early pioneers such as Grandmaster Caz, Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Grandmixer D.ST, and Grandmaster Flowers, shows the practice had roots deep in the collective conscience of Black New Yorkers. These titles coopted the highest positions of the Ku Klux Klan and the Freemasons... and made them titles of ghetto nobility, similar to what had been done with English titles in Jamaica in the late 1960s.
Titles such as Prince Paul, Inspectah Deck, Lord Finesse, King Tee, and The Fresh Prince show that U.S. rap acts have utilized some of the same naming conventions as their Jamaican predescessors. But it is important to point out that, with the exception of the late 1970s, hip hop artists haven't really adhered to any particular naming conventions. While it is true that many artists and groups sport titles based on money, drugs, or crime... there are simply too many variations to suggest that rappers are following any particular conventions. Maybe the only real convention these days is what we might call an unconvention: alternate spellings. Names such as Mystikal, Canibus, and Too $hort show a greater attention to personal style and suggestiveness of a name, than to its social basis.
The bottom line is that rappers these days are free to choose whatever style of name they want. Which brings us back to where we started: you need to come up with a catchy name that will get you in trouble with the government and/or your local secret society. Well, I wish you luck... 'cause there ain't a whole lotta Sinista names left.... you sucka!
Big up to Drew P., aka Droopy Drawls, Droop Capone, Chief Big Hat, Mr. Verbal Sunshine, who generally records under the name Dr. Oop... but wins the alias-of-the-decade award for coming up with Dread Kaczynski.
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