The Importance of Hip-Hop Inviting Comic Books To The Cool Table

[Art by Julian Lytle and Sean Causley] As I get closer I notice that they showing each other sketches out of their notebooks, reminded me of my old roots // I walk past with a nod and a reminisce // Swear to god hip hop and comic books was my genesis That verse from Atmosphere’s Slug resonates with me more and more as the years go by. Growing up, comic books and hip-hop were a huge part of my youth. I never saw these genres as separate entities ever since the day I saw Wu-Tang’s Triumph video and heard Method Man say, “On foreign land jump the gun out the frying pan into the fire// Transform into the Ghost Rider // A six-pack and a streetcar named desire.” I saw Method Man on a motorcycle with flames on his head and I knew he was referencing The Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze. My eleven-year-old self was ecstatic at the revelation because this emcee that everyone loves fucks with comics, and then he used “John Blaze” as an alias and Ghostface used “Tony Starks”? I. LOST. MY. SHIT. Here are these world famous emcees dropping obscure characters (in Method Man’s case) and I caught what he was talking about. I had to ask what “A Street Car Named Desire” was, and when I found out I was even more impressed because not only was his nerd game up but so was his playwright/literature game. From then on, nothing made me happier then catching a nerd/lit reference from an emcee. It became a game of seeing how much I could decode or catch from a verse.

This also made me proud of the depth of …