ENTRY FIFTEEN: Gangsta Birth Certificate.
Today I was watching BET, one of my favorite channels, and on 106 & Park (Think of an urban TRL, that's 106 & Park) they were talking about the new releases this week. One of them was from a rapper named Mr. Cheeks. You may remember him from such songs as "Lights, Camera, Action" and a cameo on Lil Kim's "The Jump Off". Or you may not. Well anyway, as A.J. (black Carson Daly) began to go into the countdown I couldn't help but think about how the hell someone gets a name like Mr. Cheeks. First I thought he must have a fat ass, but he's a skinny mofo. Then I thought maybe chubby cheeks on his face, but no, he has a skinny face. So then I realized that one day Mr. Cheeks must have gone up to his friends and said, "Call me Mr. Cheeks", and his friends thought it was cool. Kind of how Sting got to be called Sting even though his real name is Gordon. So I decided to go out on a quest. A quest for Dave's rap name.
Now before you can undertake a quest of such epic proportions you must first understand the history of hip-hop naming. This, as I soon found out, was very interesting. You see, rappers go through phases with their names, kind of like how there are a bunch of girls named Tiffany and Jason in college right now and virtually none older or younger than that. Rappers name themselves off of trends, and there are quite a few.
The first one I could find was for rappers who weren't cool, but they wanted to be. So they put "Ice" in their name. Ice-T, Vanilla Ice, and Ice Cube are a few good examples of this, but this trend evaporated as soon as Vanilla came along. Then I noticed a VERY popular trend that has transcended all rap generations, initials. Here's a short list of some of those artists: ATL (Above The Law), B.G. aka B. Gizzle, CPU (Colored People United), DMC (Darren McDaniels), DMX (Dog Man X), DPG (Dogg Pound Gangstaz), DTP (Disturbin Tha Peace), LL Cool J (Ladies Love Cool James), KRS One (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone), N.W.A. (Niggaz with attitudez), Nas (Nasir Jones is his real name, but it also stands for Niggaz are Superior), and UGK of Big Pimpin fame (Under Ground Kings). In addition to abbreviations there were also names that had singular letters in them like Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Pusha T of the Clipse, U-God of Wu-Tang, and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. So it was clear that I needed a letter or abbreviation in my name.
Another popular trend was something referring to size in the rappers name. Like Heavy D, Puff Daddy aka P. Diddy, Big Pun, Fat Joe, Big Daddy Kane, Big Boi of Outkast, Big Bank Henry, and the Big Tymers (Baby and Mannie Fresh). But my personal favorite was Pudgee Tha Phat Bastard. Now that's a rap name. You know this guy is proud to be big because he put some swagger into it. But rappers don't have to be big. They can be little or, Lil as they seemingly prefer to be called. Like Lil Bow Wow, Lil Romeo, Lil Kim, Lil Zane, Lil Wayne, Lil D and Lil Cease. So another thing that I have to have is something referring to my size.
Going with more current trends, the new thing seems to be all about money. There are The Cash Money Millionaires, 50 Cent, Mista Paper, and Currensy. Also cars seem to be trendy with A-Lexxus, Porsha, Mercedes, and Tha Humma.
Now some artists like Pudgee tha Phat Bastard stand above the rest. They are so unbelievably creative that their names almost sound like insults. Rappers who fall into this category of ultimate creativity are: Ol Dirty Bastard, Pooh Man, Sticky Fingaz, Porn Theatre Ushaz, Jadakiss, Knumskull, Luke Skywalker, and Souljah Slim.
DJ Wallcrawla Skinnee GreenBCKR
Now you may be wondering how I got to this conclusion. First it was all about the abbreviation. Now I'm sure you're all saying, "DJ is so overdone, like the French being pussies." But as a matter of fact my name is David James therefore making my initials DJ, justifying why I have a right to use it even though it's overdone. Besides I've used it before. I belonged to my community college radio station and my name was DJ Tanner. Now the next aspect, Wallcrawla. If you know me, you know I love Spiderman more than a fat kid loves cake. So I added Wallcrawler for the creative part, then I dropped the ER and added A because it makes it more gangsta (not gangster, gangster is bad). Skinee came along because I'm a skinny son of a bitch. I made it a little more ghetto by dropping the Y and adding the EE. And then my favorite part, GreenBCKR. GreenBCKR really is greenbacker, which is for greenbacks, an old-school term for dollaz, uh, I mean dollars. But the best is yet to come. The ¡°BCKR¡± in GreenBCKR are capitalized for a reason. It stands for "Behold, Caucasian Kickin Rhymes!" So in essence it justifies my right to rap as a white guy.
I hope you all enjoyed my venture into rap naming and I hope you all do the same. As a matter of fact, if you send me your rap names I'll be sure to put them up on my site and maybe we can form a rap posse like Puff Daddy and the Family, 50 Cent and G-Unit, Eminem and D12, Ludacris and Disturbin Tha Peace, and Master P and the No Limit Soljaz. We could be DJ Wallcrawla Skinee GreenBCKR and the Duderanchers...or something like that.
Man. I listen to way too much rap.
By the way, my spellchecker exploded on this rant.
Sail on, take it back, sail on, take it back, sail on...
So it seems as if we have some sort of rhetoric of rap names here. Here are the minimum requirements...
1) Must have an abbreviation.
2) Must refer to your size
3) Must be extremely creative or
4) Must have Ice, something relating to money, or a car in it.
So here goes...Dave's rap name.