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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: "rouge bat breasts cook Moulin baton chicken" "midget weightlifter" "nipples Morgan Fairchild" "mail order hookers" "interview with the vampire fangs" "Texas girls Molly tease" "CRACK PIPE PICTURE" "teeth plaque conspiracy Metallica" |
07.07.2004
In the early 1980s, a film was released that had a profound effect on the history of hip-hop. It seemed unlikely to have any resonance in the rap world -- its director was best known for his self-referential artsiness, the cast featured no prominent roles for African-Americans, and its soundtrack featured off-kilter poppy gloss that was the furthest thing from hard. Its star, a short-statured veteran actor in a colorful and ill-fitting suit, didn't seem like the sort of figure who would become an icon to a coming generation of gangstas. But that's exactly the way it played out, and American culture would never be the same. The movie, of course, was Pee Wee's Big Adventure. An entire generation of rappers dissected the film with the precision of the most tenacious deconstructionists. Sampled dialogue from it showed up everywhere. MCs named themselves after the characters both minor and major. The visual style of the movie became required for anyone working in the gangsta rap subgenre for the next 15 years -- the blocky, "wacky" lettering used in Big Adventure's poster art appeared everywhere, and hardly an album was reseased from 1986 to 2000 by a would-be thug-lifer that didn't feature a red-and-white Radio Flyer bike in its graphic design. The Geto Boys -- the hardest of the hard in a medium full of hard men -- virtually built their careers and public personae around Pee Wee's Big Adventure, from their lead rapper Mr. Pee Wee's nom du rap to ambitious concept songs like "Mind Playin' Tricks On Me (I Play Tricks Back)". P.W. Herman's "I'm a loner...a rebel" became the most sampled bit of dialogue in the history of rap music; its only serious competition was from "I know you are, but what am I?", from the same movie. ICE CUBE: Oh, hell, yeah, we was all about Pee Wee in N.W.A. We went through a period, back in the early days, Eazy was wearin' them little bow ties and clonky shoes 24-7. We'd watch it on a loop -- this was in the days before DVDs, ya heard -- we'd hook it up on a VHS player at Dre's crib, get blunted, and watch the Large Marge scene over and over again. When I first sampled that "Go ahead and scream your head off! We're miles from where anyone can hear you!" line on 'Don't Trust 'Em', I felt like I was a made guy or somethin'. It is almost impossible to overestimate the impact Pee Wee's Big Adventure had on the rap game. It made careers and broke them. Among the big winners were the city of San Antonio, which became to rap music what Nashville was to rock & roll and Detroit was to soul (as well as spawning the durable Alamo-funk genre; Dr. Dre's studio, the Basement of the Alamo, became its national headquarters) and the career of director Tim Burton, who went on to create groundbreaking and hugely popular videos such as the BMX Kids' "Tattoo Him, Hang Him and Then Kill Him", Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's "What's the Significance? (I Don't Know!)", and, of course, Sir Mix-A-Lot's megahit "Everyone I Know Has a Big But". RAEKWON: There wouldn't have been no Wu-Tang Clan without Pee Wee. Back in the Shaolin, we was all just fell in together, seen? We didn't have nothin' in common except we all liked rappin' and we was all heavy into my man Paul Reubens. Like, that skit on the first album, that 'Where My Pee Wee Tape At'? That's totally drawn from life. Back before we picked our Wu names, Deck used to be called Amazing Larry...we used to call all the ladies Dotties. It was a great time to be alive, man. |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "Everyone should learn to do one thing supremely well because he likes it, and one thing supremely well because he detests it." (B.W.M. Young) |