Humanity F Critic and the elements of Hip Hop

Many people, friends, family, fuckers who would love to see me dead, say constantly that I take things way too seriously. When somebody said during a bar conversation that "Dominique Wilkins was better than Kobe Bryant" it took me a half hour to calm down and not punch that son of a bitch on GP.(general principle) When this dude who was 6'6 decided to give me a few, what he called "Inadvertent" elbows during pick-up basketball, I waited the whole game, leaving the lane wide open so when he did finally attempt to dunk I tackled his ass mid air like that Terry the office linebacker dude. When me and some friends went bowling a few months back and the new boyfriend of my home-girl Jill had the audacity to talk about the music I was playing, saying "What are you playing, Rakim? Yuck!!" I almost lost it. Even though I angrily told him that if he ever said that in my car again that I'd make him pace back and forth in front of the local gay bar with the sign, "Pick a hole, Come on!!" around his neck, it still took me every ounce of HumanityCritic restraint not to choke-slam that mental midget.

Even though some of my actions are regretful, I don't regret anything that I have done concerning Hip Hop because when it comes to the subject people think that they are scholars when actually they are talking out of their uninformed ass. Look, I don't claim to be an authority on Hip Hop, but that is one of the great things about the art-form to be totally honest. Like Karate, Hip Hop has a feel to it like you can always learn on some "Cane from Kung-Fu walking the planet, can you snatch this pebble from my hand?"shit. Also, like a martial art, Hip Hop has elements that you must abide by.(MCing, DJing, graffiti, B-Boying, and knowledge.) The following is my particular experiences, good and bad, with a few of the elements that I named.

MCing: (holding a Hip Hop Anonymous Candle) Yes, I'm HumanityCritic and I used to be a MC! OK, that's a lie, since I still have the delusion in my mind that I can get back on the Mic after a long layoff and kill any MC in front of me, as if I'm the rapping version of Kareem Abdul Jabar who comes out of retirement to manhandle Shaq in the low post. A guy can dream can't he?? Granted, if you enjoy the lyrical stylings of those Laffy Taffy fucks, or you co-sign with Young Jeezy and Jah Rule as they dismisses the importance of battling, then this element isn't for you Scooter. My fondest memory of MCing isn't a pretty one, but it is the one that sticks out in my mind the most.

At the height of my rapping days, when I thought that I was the second coming to Rakim and was sure that my bowel movements didn't have a questionable odor to it, I was invited to freestyle with my friend Mark at an underground Hip Hop station more than a decade ago. I was amped to show my stuff, since I felt at the time that no one living within a 200 mile radius of me could lyrically fuck with the man you would eventually come to know as Humanity F Critic. So, as about 10 of us MC's huddled together in a very hot vocal booth preparing to recite our hottest bars, I decide to kick it traditional and freestyle. So I got my turn, did my thing, and figured that I had shined and that my rhyming duties were over, but I was wrong. That is when out of nowhere, this young 15 year old who I didn't even think was going to rap started dissing the fuck out of me like I had given him a "swirly" or a very aggressive "wedgie" or something. Of course he was wack, but because of his age and his audacity to diss someone older, the other dudes gave him love. So in an act that I regret, based on my anger and some inside info, I went on a "agenda of hate" freestyle on the young man that included his family being on welfare, the hand-me-down clothes that he had on, how he smelled like a potent mixture of piss and cologne, his small teeth that were also crooked so I said that he had "Tic-tac's of death in his mouth", even called his mother who was waiting for him in the adjoining room who indeed looked "crackish" a "crack-whore". I think the kid started crying, and the older MC's there called me an asshole and thought that I had went too far. Yeah, its not one of my finest moment, but there is no crying in Hip Hop!!

DJing: If I was to sit here and say that I am well versed in the art of DJing, that I could master the wheels of steel the same way a ship's captin controls his ship during a bad storm, or the same way Mary J. Blige's make-up artist works wonders with a mascara brush without throwing up, I would be a motherfucking liar. I can't do any fancy tricks, no behind the back scratching, nothing that would win me any sort of DJ competition or anything. BUT, I can scratch a little and I do have the ability to mix. So, because of my basic knowledge of DJing a friend of mine had asked me to DJ a barbecue that he was throwing, with him supplying the DJ equipment and his vast record collection.

It started off flawless at first, with people dancing their intoxicated asses off as I used vinyl to not only take people down memory lane but hopefully get a wonderful piece of "after barbecue" patch later. Things turned bad quick, as events that would lead to about a hundred people nicknaming me "Fuck you, Scram!!" I got that wonderful moniker by my response when some douche-bag would ask me to play Young Buck, 50 Cent, Young Jeezy, or any garden variety rapper who is so wack that they should go through a public caning, my response would simply be "Fuck you, Scram!!!" People were pissed, openly complaining about my musical selections, and even threatened to remove me physically from my DJing duties but thought against it when out of spite I played "Live at the Barbecue" 10 times in a row to show them that I don't do well with threats.

Graffitti: Because my artistic ability hardly surpasses being able to draw stick figures, being a respected Graph writer was definitely out of the question. I had some friends who were graph artists in college and I would go out with them when they tagged up a wall or something, but I would always feel like a 5th wheel as the only thing I could contribute was my then personal logo consisting of a stick man with a phallus so big that he had to throw it over his shoulder. But the one memorable time that I had concerning graffiti is when I was the designated look out, posted on a roof top so I could alert my graffiti artist friends if the police came anywhere close to where we were at. When I got on the roof, after climbing a very shitty ladder that we brought, I realized that I was afraid of heights and my knees got weak and I collapsed in the fetal position. Even though I was only out a few minutes, when I awoke I was still scared shitless to the point that I had trouble standing. Suffice it to say my friends left me after hours of trying to get my black ass down, but it was a memory that I will never forget.(Probably because the next morning I ran for my life after I finally found the courage to get back down to solid ground, since a shopkeeper thought that I was a criminal and started calling the cops.)

B-Boying: Besides having a few popping moves that would make any Hip Hop aficionado applaud and a backspin to make the women out there drop their collective panties, sadly those two moves are the only weapons that I have in my B-Boying repertoire. Of course currently I don't have any moves, I found that out when I saw my boy Iselfra B-Boying at the Roots after party, doing his thing, I couldn't help but to feel inadequate and old as I felt a single grey hair emerge from my testicles. But my best memory that I have of B-Boying is when I was a kid living in Naval Housing, break-dancing with my friends at local competitions. Looking back, I didn't have many dance moves, but I did have a gimmick though!! That gimmick was my popping, bringing it down, and because I could roll my stomach I would lift my shirt so it would look like my midsection was indeed part of my dance routine. But people were quickly tired of the only move I could pull off successfully, and they were also tired of the Camouflage break-dance outfit I wore every fucking time that I went B-Boying. I knew it looked bad to always wear the same outfit, but calling yourself the "Camouflage Kid" doesn't really leave you with many fashion options.