Last year I said something about a certain hip-hop meets Marvel comics TV show that was so out of my dreams that someone could have made it up just to mess with me. File this in that same folder: KRS-One and one of my favorite comic book artists teamed up to make a hip-hop, after school special style, comic for the kids, complete with a cassette featuring three all-ages, Return Of The Boom Bap era Boogie Down Productions tracks that you've never heard. Almost has to be a story designed to send me on some e-bay/discogs wild goose chase... Except it's true and I just got my hands on a copy that's been sitting in someone's closet unopened for the last 28 years.
1994: record producer Marshall Chess (ex-of Chess and Cadet Records) somehow pulls Kris and brilliant cartoonist Kyle Baker into a Marvel Comics deal to produce an educational comic book and music combo package. The result was Break The Chain, a full 32 page comic illustrated by Baker and bagged with a cassette tape. The tape is "read along record" style, as in "you know it's time to turn the page when you hear the DING!" Except the "ding" from those records I had as a kid has been replaced with a booming, echoing shout from of: "WORD!" You can't make this stuff up. The last time I posted something from the Blastmaster, it was an "action hero theme song," but this doubles down and actually turns KRS-One into a comic book character.
KRS plays Big Joe Crash, a rapper with a new album out, spending the afternoon with his little sister and couple kids from their block checking out tracks from his new tape, talking to Grandma, and learning lessons about the importance of education, Black history and knowing your culture. And if that sounds corny as hell, well sure it is, but who cares? I mean really, it seems kind of obvious that "The Teacha" should have done a children's album at some point. (Related: Here's a link to a teacher's guide on Baker's graphic novel biography of Nat Turner. Told you he was cool.) And I mentioned that there are three, mid-90s KRS-One tracks that were only released here, right? It's not MC's Act Like They Don't Know, but still...
Even with a grammar school target audience, Break The Chain is a little surreal (including the fact that it even exists). Um... "It's a Psychosonic Comic!" A trippy collage of KRS shouts, lion roars and basketball dribbles closes out the tape, matched up with a beautiful, final page pin-up (that my son and I both immediately wished we had a poster of).
The graffiti and BDP tag in the bottom corner was a nice touch... Hearing the KRS trash talk that we know and love get channeled into Joe Krash's obnoxious, teenage sarcasm is great. (Wish we had a scene with him at back at school though, just so we could get a "Fresh... for third period, you suckas!") And again, the turn-the-page-to-read-along "Word!" was a pretty much a genius move.
It's probably a bit much for me to feel robbed that we never got a BDP x Fantastic Four audio comic or something. (My cast, if you're wondering: KRS-One as Mr. Fantastic, Ms. Melodie as the Invisible Woman, D-Nice* as the Human Torch, Mad Lion as The Thing. But I guess that's obvious.) With a big "Coming Next Issue..." blurb on the back cover, we should have at least gotten one more adventure from Big Joe Krash!
They did manage to produce a music video, but sadly, as far as I can tell from a few minutes of internet sleuthing for the most recent issue of Break The Chain... it's still number one.
I recorded the tape and split the tracks so that you can skip to just the songs if you want. But don't! I scanned and included a PDF of the full comic, so grab the kids and read along while you listen! Also in there is a great little interview from Vibe with KRS and Baker where they talk about dreams of getting a Joe Krash Saturday morning cartoon where they could do things like Krash thinking back on the Rodney King verdict and reflecting on whether it was right for him to steal during the uprisings. (KRS-One: "Kids would still be getting a message. But they're not being dictated this white-bread kind of message. They're getting it for real!") KRS also drops this gem:
Fun stuff. And hopeful, if you can pack away the modern cynicism for just a few minutes. And we need some of that celebration and hope: the world and news can be heartbreakingly traumatic these days. There are definitely worse ways to spend 20 minutes (with or without the kids) over the long weekend. Enjoy!
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Tracklist
1Intro (Psychosonic Comic!) & Page 1 2Pages 2 - 4 3Who Am I 4Pages 8 - 11 5Break The Chain 6Pages 17 -23 7So Much Greater 8 Pages 32 & Outro (Word!)
*Of course, a compelling case could be made for Kid Capri to take the role of Johnny Storm instead. Feel free to discuss.
**Music nerd ish: Original, previously unplayed cassette tape > tape deck > Novation AudioHub 2x4 > recorded in Audacity in 32-bit float/48 kHz > export to FLAC (level 5) at 24 bit/48 kHz. Tape hiss was pretty loud, but the tape gave no indication that Dolby was used and I tried it, while it brought down the noise significantly, I thought the high end of the music suffered. Instead I used some very mild noise reduction in Audacity that I thought left the tape sounding pretty good with almost no impact on the actual recording. I've been playing with digitizing a few tapes lately and have been recording them at 48 kHz rather than my usual 96 kHz since none of them really have any signal above somewhere in the 15-20 kHz range. I figure I'd be making the files twice as big to preserve additional tape hiss and ultrasonic noise. But I don't really know what I'm doing, so any smart audio tech people out there should feel free to set me straight!
***Translation for those who don't care about audio nerd ish: Almost 30 year old tapes can sound crappy. I tried to make this sound a little better. I think it came out pretty okay.
Horace Andy / Augustus Pablo – Problems / Lovers Mood Pressure Sounds – PSS 001 Vinyl, 7", UK, 1995 info The last time I posted something here was almost six months ago, when we were days away from an important election... and when I had I had convinced myself once again that there was some chance I could pull off posting music on a more regular basis. At least my hopefulness for the election was well founded! Chicago has a new mayor and some new optimism, but life remains complicated. Major changes at work and home given me plenty of excuses from ever diving back into music (or this blog) like I intend to. instead of sad stories though, I'll share some good advice from the great Horace Andy. "Don't let problems get you down, they will put you in a hole." Not sure if anyone is still lurking around this site, but I'll try to keep that guidance in mind and start putting some music up here every now and then if anyone is searching. I hope you find this and enjoy
Ghetto Priest with Skip McDonald & Adrian Sherwood – Auld Lang Syne c/w The Slave's Lament Not On Label (Graham Fagen Self-released) CD Single, UK, Feb 11, 2005 This New Year's Eve share might be too somber for a party night... but I'm hoping I'm still on good paper after the Louie Vega Xmas disco records and that you'll forgive me if this is less aimed for the holiday dancefloor. I'm no expert, but it seems that Scottish artist Graham Fagen has produced a number of works over the years exploring the history of connections between Scotland and Jamaica (especially via the slave trade). He has collaborated with musicians to produce music and sounds to accompany his installations and visuals, several times working with members of the On-U Sound family. For a 2005 exhibit called Clean Hands Pure Heart , Fagen asked that team to produce a recording that combined the New Year's standard Auld Lang Syne with another song, The Slave's Lament , also written
Monty Alexander – Love And Sunshine MPS Records – G-22620 Vinyl, LP, Album, USA, 1975 info _____________________________ I recorded this album and started preparing the post almost six months ago. I intended it to be the follow up to a post talking about the Chicago elections . The punchline was that the people won, we elected a Black, progressive, union organizer as mayor and Love And Sunshine landed on my turntable and seemed like a good soundtrack to a hopeful moment. Before posting I realized that I had completely messed up the recording and just couldn't get around to rerecording and fixing it up again until now. My taste may typically run more to the spiritual or free jazz ends of things, but there is something I love about a straight forward set like this one by Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander. Not sure what it is- Standards, pop tunes arranged for a jazz combo, and the complete lack of pretention, maybe? Alexander cut this set for the German MPS label live in front of a
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