Signifyin(g) (vernacular) is a practice in African American culture, involving a verbal strategy of indirection that exploits the gap between the denotative and figurative meanings of words.

Origin and features[link]

According to Black literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., the practice derived from the Trickster archetype found in much African mythology, folklore, and religion: a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and societal norms. In practice, signifyin' often takes the form of quoting from subcultural vernacular, while extending the meaning at the same time through a rhetorical figure.

The expression itself derives from the numerous tales about the Signifying Monkey, a folk trickster figure said to have originated during slavery in the United States. In most of these narratives, the Monkey manages to dupe the powerful Lion by signifying. Signifyin(g) directs attention to the connotative, context-bound significance of words, which is accessible only to those who share the unique cultural values of a given speech community.

The term Signifyin(g) itself currently carries a range of metaphorical and theoretical meanings in black cultural studies that stretch far beyond its literal scope of reference. In his highly influential book The Signifying Monkey (1988),^[1] Gates expands the term to refer not merely to a specific vernacular strategy but also to a trope of double-voiced repetition and reversal that exemplifies the distinguishing property of Black discourse. However, this subtle African-American device, if linguistically analyzed, becomes notoriously difficult to pin down, as Gates states in The Signifying Monkey:

Thinking about the black concept of Signifiyin(g) is a bit like stumbling unaware into a hall of mirrors: the sign itself appears to be doubled, at the very least, and (re)doubled upon ever closer examination. It is not the sign itself, however, which has multiplied. If orientation prevails over madness, we soon realize that only the signifier has been doubled and (re)doubled, a signifier in this instance that is silent, a "sound-image" as Saussure defines the signifier, but a "sound-image" sans the sound. The difficulty that we experience when thinking about the nature of the visual (re)doubling at work in a hall of mirrors is analogous to the difficulty we shall encounter in relating the black linguistic sign, "Signification," to the standard English sign, "signification." This level of conceptual difficulty stems from – indeed, seems, to have been intentionally inscribed within – the selection of the signifier, "signification." For the standard English word is a homonym of the Afro-American vernacular word. And, to compound the dizziness and giddiness that we must experience in the vertiginous movement between these two "identical" signifiers, these two homonyms have everything to do with each other and, then again, absolutely nothing.^[2]

Music[link]

Caponi (1999) "describes calls, cries, hollers, riffs, licks, overlapping antiphony" as examples of signifying in hip hop music and other African-American music. She explains that signifying differs from simple repetition and from simple variation in that it uses material "rhetorically or figuratively — through troping, in other words — by trifling with, teasing, or censuring it in some way.^[3]

Signifyin(g) is also a way of demonstrating respect for, goading, or poking fun at a musical style, process, or practice through parody, pastische, implication, indirection, humor, tone- or word-play, the illusions of speech, or narration, and other troping mechanisms… Signifyin(g) shows, among other things, either reverence or irreverence toward previously stated musical statements and values." Schloss^[4] relates this to the ambiguity common to African musics including looping (as of a sample) for "it allows individuals to demonstrate intellectual power while simultaneously obscuring the nature and extent of their agency… It allows producers to use other people's music to convey their own compositional ideas".

See also[link]

• Call and response
• Epideixis
• Signifying monkey
• "Signifying Rapper"
• Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban Present
• Wikipedia

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Caponi, Gena Dagel (1999). Signifyin(G), Sanctifyin', & Slam Dunking: A Reader in African American Expressive Culture. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-183-X.
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1988) The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503463-5.
• Schloss, Joseph G. (2004). Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-6696-9.
• Myers, D.G. Signifying Nothing. New Criterion 8 (February 1990): 61-64.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010)

Rudy Ray Moore
Born	(1927-03-17)March 17, 1927 Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States
Died	October 19, 2008(2008-10-19) (aged 81) Akron, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, Comedian, Singer, Comic, Film producer
Years active	1950s–2008
Website
http://www.dolemite.com

Rudy Ray Moore (March 17, 1927 – October 19, 2008) was an American comedian, musician, singer, film actor, and film producer. He was perhaps best known as Dolemite (the name derived from the mineral dolomite), the uniquely articulate pimp from the 1975 film Dolemite, and its sequel, The Human Tornado. The persona was developed during his earlier stand-up comedy records.^[1]

Biography[link]

Moore, who was raised in his birthplace of Fort Smith, Arkansas, as well as Cleveland, Ohio, began his entertainment career as an R&B singer and continued singing through his comedy career. He developed an interest in comedy in the Army after expanding on a singing performance for other servicemen. Moore released many comedy records throughout the 1960s and 1970s, developing a rude and explicit style similar to Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor. This kept him off of television and major films, but cultivated an enduring fan base.^[1]

Some of Moore's X-Rated comedy records were recorded at his home with personal friends in attendance as the audience.

He appeared on Big Daddy Kane's 1990 album Taste of Chocolate and 2 Live Crew's 1994 album Back at Your Ass for the Nine-4. On an episode of Martin titled "The Players Came Home," he appeared as himself in the Dolemite character. He also reprised his Dolemite character in an appearance on Snoop Dogg's 1999 album No Limit Top Dogg and Busta Rhymes' When Disaster Strikes....

In 2000, Moore starred in Big Money Hustlas, a movie created by and starring the hip hop group Insane Clown Posse, in which he played Dolemite for the first time in over 20 years.

In 2006, Moore voice acted in the show Sons of Butcher (TV series), as Rudy in season 2.

In 2008, Moore reprised the character Petey Wheatstraw on the song "I Live For The Funk," which featured Blowfly and Daniel Jordan. This marked the first time Blowfly and Rudy collaborated on the same record together—and the 30-year anniversary of the movie Petey Wheatstraw and was also the final recording Rudy made before his death.^[2]

On October 19, 2008, Moore died of complications from diabetes. He was never married, and his mother survived him.^[3]

Discography[link]

• Below the Belt (1959)
• Beatnik Scene (1962)
• Comedian is Born (1964)
• Let's Come Together (1970, recorded 1967)
• Eat Out More Often (1970)
• This Pussy Belongs To Me
• Dolemite for President (1972)
• Merry Christmas, Baby
• Cockpit
• Return of Dolemite
• Sensuous Black Man
• Zodiac
• I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing
• Jokes by Redd Foxx
• Live in Concert
• The Player—The Hustler
• House Party: Dirty Dozens Vol.1
• The Streaker
• Dolemite Is Another Crazy Nigger
• Sweet Peeter Jeeter
• Turning Point
• Close Encounter of the Sex Kind
• Good-Ole Big Ones
• Hip-Shakin' Papa
• Greatest Hits (1995)
• This Ain't No White Christmas
• Raw, Rude, and Real—More Greatest Hits
• 21st-Century Dolemite (2002)
• Hully Gully Fever
• Genius of Rudy Ray Moore
• "Dolemite For President—Special Edition (2008)"
• "50 Years Of Cussing (2009)"

Filmography[link]

• Dolemite
• The Human Tornado
• Monkey Hustle
• Petey Wheatstraw
• Disco Godfather
• Rude
• BAPs
• Penitentiary II
• Legend of Dolemite
• Live at Wetlands
• The Great White Hype
• Shaolin Dolemite
• Big Money Hustlas
• Dolemite Explosion
• Vampire Assassin
• A Stupid Movie for Jerks
• Li'l Pimp
• The Dolemite Explosion (2007)
• It Came From Trafalgar (2009)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rudy Ray Moore

• Myxer link: http://www.myxer.com/MRCOMEDY/
• Rudy Ray Moore at the Internet Movie Database
• Dolemite Records
• Rudy Ray Moore's official Web site
• Dolemite.com
• Rudy Ray Moore Record Label
• Zolten, Jerry, "'I Ain't Lyin'!' The Unexpurgated Truth about Rudy Ray Moore." Living Blues # 157, May/June, 2001.
• ZZZlist.com 2007 interview with Rudy Ray Moore
• Rudy Ray Moore dies at the age of 81
• MTV Obituary

Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes^[1] (December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012), better known as Johnny Otis, was an American singer, musician, composer, and record producer.^[2] Born in Vallejo, California,^[1] he is commonly referred to as the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues".^[3]

Personal life[link]

Otis was the child of Greek immigrants Alexander J. Veliotes, a Mare Island longshoreman and grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a painter.^[1][4]

He was the older brother of Nicholas A. Veliotes, former U.S. Ambassador to Jordan (1978–1981) and to Egypt (1984–1986).

Otis grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in Berkeley, California, where his father owned and operated a neighborhood grocery store. Otis became well known for his choice to live his professional and personal life as a member of the African-American community.^[5][6][7] He has written, "As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black."^[8]

He was the father of musician Shuggie Otis.

Music career[link]

After playing drums in a variety of swing orchestras, including Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders,^[9] and Harlan Leonard's Rockets,^[10] he founded his own band in 1945 and had one of the most enduring hits of the big band era, "Harlem Nocturne". His band included Wynonie Harris and Charles Brown. In 1947, he and Bardu Ali opened the Barrelhouse Club in the Watts district of Los Angeles, California. He reduced the size of his band and hired singers Mel Walker, Little Esther Phillips and the Robins (who later became the Coasters). He discovered the teenaged Phillips when she won one of the Barrelhouse Club's talent shows. With this band, which toured extensively throughout the United States as the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, he had a long string of rhythm and blues hits through 1950.

In the late 1940s, he discovered Big Jay McNeely, who then performed on his "Barrelhouse Stomp". He began recording for the Newark, New Jersey-based Savoy label in 1949,^[10] and began releasing a stream of records that made the R&B chart, including "Double Crossing Blues", "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid Boogie", which all featured either Little Esther or Mel Walker, or both, and all reached no. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart.^[11] He also began featuring himself on vibraphone on many of his recordings.^[10] Otis produced and played the vibraphone on Johnny Ace's "Pledging My Love", which was no. 1 on the Billboard R and B chart for 10 weeks in 1955.

In January 1951, Otis released "Mambo Boogie," featuring congas, maracas, claves, and mambo saxophone guajeos in a blues progression. According to Vernon Boggs, this was the first R&B mambo^[12] Listen: "Mambo Boogie" by Johnny Otis (1951).

Saxophone guajeo in blues progression. "Mambo Boogie" by Johnny Otis (1951).

He moved to the Mercury label in 1951, but his chart success began to diminish. However, he discovered Etta James and produced and co-wrote her first hit, "Roll With Me, Henry" (also known as "The Wallflower"). Otis produced, co-wrote, and played drums on the original recording of "Hound Dog" written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller with vocals by Big Mama Thornton, and was given a writing credit on all six of the 1953 releases of the song. He was a successful songwriter; one of his most famous compositions is "Every Beat of My Heart", first recorded by The Royals in 1952 on Federal Records^[13][14] but which became a hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips then just 'Pips' in 1961. He also wrote "So Fine" which was originally recorded by The Sheiks in 1955 on Federal. As an artist and repertory man for King Records he also discovered Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard, and Little Willie John, among others.^[10] He also became an influential disc-jockey in Los Angeles.^[15]

After starting his own label, Dig, in 1955, he continued to perform and appeared on regular TV shows in Los Angeles from 1957. On the strength of their success, he signed to Capitol Records. Featuring singer Marie Adams, and with his band now being credited as the Johnny Otis Show, he made a comeback, at first in the British charts with "Ma He's Making Eyes At Me" in 1957.^[16] In April 1958, he recorded his best-known recording, "Willie and the Hand Jive", a clave-based vamp, which relates to hand and arm motions in time with the music, called the hand jive. This went on to be a hit in the summer of 1958, peaking at #9 on the U.S. Pop chart, and becoming Otis' only Top 10 single. The single reached no. 1 on the Billboard R and B chart. The song was covered by Eric Clapton in 1974, and became a staple of his live repertoire. Otis' success with the song was short-lived, and he briefly moved to King Records in 1961, where he backed Johnny "Guitar" Watson on some recordings.^[10]

In 1969 he recorded an album of sexually explicit material under the name Snatch and the Poontangs.^[17] In 1970 he played at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival with Little Esther Phillips and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. In the 1980s he had a weekly radio show in Los Angeles, playing R&B music,^[18] and also recorded with his son Shuggie Otis, releasing the 1982 album The New Johnny Otis Show.^[10]

Otis continued performing through the 1990s and headlined the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1990 and 2000, although because of his many other interests he went through long periods where he did not perform. He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a nonperformer for his work as a songwriter and producer.^[19]

Other work[link]

In the 1960s, he entered journalism and politics, losing a campaign for a seat in the California State Assembly (one reason for the loss may be that he ran under his much less well known real name). He then became chief of staff for Democratic Congressman Mervyn M. Dymally.^[20] He was also was the pastor of Landmark Community Church.

In the 1990s, Otis bought a farm near Sebastopol, California, north of San Francisco. For a time he ran a coffee shop/grocery store/blues club, where one of the featured singers was the Georgia-born singer Jackie Payne. Around this time Otis also founded and pastored a new church, Landmark Community Gospel Church, which held weekly rehearsals in the tiny town of Forestville, California, and Sunday services in Santa Rosa, California. Landmark's worship services centered on Otis' preaching and the traditional-style performances of a gospel choir and a male gospel quartet, backed by a rocking band that featured Otis' son Nicky Otis and Shuggie's son, Lucky Otis. The church closed its doors in the mid-1990s.^{[citation needed]}

Otis hosted a radio show on KPFA, The Johnny Otis Show. This show was aired every Saturday morning, live from the Powerhouse Brewery in Sebastopol. Listeners were invited to stop in for breakfast and enjoy the show live. Due to declining health, as well as his relocation to Los Angeles, his participation in the show decreased. The show last aired on August 19, 2006.^{[citation needed]}

He died on January 17, 2012, just three days before Etta James, whom he discovered in the 1950s.^[2]

Discography[link]

Chart singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Johnny Otis at Allmusic
• JohnnyOtis.com

William James "Willie" Dixon (July 1, 1915 – January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer.^[1] A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the upright bass and the guitar and as a vocalist, Dixon is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. He is recognized as one of the founders of the Chicago blues sound. Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of the man's most famous compositions includes "Little Red Rooster", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Evil", "Spoonful", "Back Door Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "I Ain't Superstitious", "My Babe", "Wang Dang Doodle", and "Bring It On Home". These tunes were written during the peak of Chess Records, 1950–1965, and performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter, influencing a worldwide generation of musicians.^[2]

Next to Muddy Waters, he was the most influential person in shaping the post World War II sound of the Chicago blues.^[3] He also was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. His songs were covered by some of the biggest artists of more recent times, including Styx, Bob Dylan, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Foghat, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Megadeth, The Doors, The Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead,^[3] and a posthumous duet with Colin James.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 1, 1915.^[1] His mother Daisy often rhymed the things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as an early teenager. He later learned how to sing harmony from local carpenter Leo Phelps. Dixon sang bass in Phelps' group The Jubilee Singers, a local gospel quartet that regularly appeared on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. Dixon began adapting poems he was writing as songs, and even sold some tunes to local music groups.

Adulthood[link]

Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, at 6 and a half feet and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing; he was so successful that he won the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.^[4] Dixon turned professional as a boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis' sparring partner. After four fights, Dixon left boxing after getting into a fight with his manager over being cheated out of money.

Dixon met Leonard Caston at the boxing gym where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago but it was Caston that got him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned the guitar.

Dixon, whose initial attempts at his vocation as a boxer were now dubious, began performing around Chicago and with Caston, who convinced him to move towards a musical career.^[5] In 1939, was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress as he progressed on the Upright bass came to an abrupt halt during the advent of World War II when he resisted the draft as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months.^[1] After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive and then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, who went on to record for Columbia Records.

Pinnacle of career[link]

Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, although he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, where he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy.^[6] He later recorded on Bluesville Records.^[7] From the late 1960s until the middle 1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, along with two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album Peace? on Yambo, as well as singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.^[8]

Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others. His double bass playing was of a high standard. He appears on many of Chuck Berry's early recordings, further proving his linkage between the blues and the birth of rock and roll.

Dixon is remembered mainly as a songwriter; his most enduring gift to the blues lay in refurbishing archaic Southern motifs, often of magic and country folkways and often derived from earlier records such as those by Charlie Patton, in contemporary arrangements, to produce songs with both the sinew of the blues, and the agility of pop.^[9] British R&B bands of the 1960s constantly drew on the Dixon songbook for inspiration.^[9] In December 1964, The Rolling Stones reached #1 in the UK Singles Chart with their cover version of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster".^[10]

By the late sixties, Dixon's songwriting and production work began to take a back seat to his organizational abilities, which were utilised to assemble all-star, Chicago-based blues ensembles for work in Europe.^[9]

Dixon in Cary, Illinois at Harry Hopes, 1979

In his later years, Willie Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation. The organization works to preserve the blues’ legacy and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It’s better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."

Dixon's health deteriorated increasingly during the seventies and the eighties, primarily due to long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs had to be amputated.^[1] Dixon was inducted at the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony, and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.^[11] In 1989 he was also the recipient of a Grammy Award for his album, Hidden Charms.^[12]

Death and legacy[link]

Dixon died of heart failure^[13] in Burbank, California on January 29, 1992,^[1] and was buried in the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the "early influences" (pre-rock) category in 1994.^[14]

Actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.^[15][16]

Willie Dixon's grandson Alex Dixon recorded two Willie Dixon songs, ("Spoonful" and "Down in the Bottom"), on his release Rising from the Bushes.^[1]

Songs[link]

Tributes[link]

• French singer-songwriter Francis Cabrel refers to Dixon in the song "Cent Ans de Plus" on his 1999 album Hors-Saison. Cabrel cites the artist as one of a number of blues influences, including Charley Patton, Son House, Blind Lemon, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Blind Blake and Ma Rainey.
• Canadian rock musician Tom Cochrane wrote a song entitled "Willie Dixon Said" that appeared on his 1999 album X-Ray Sierra.
• Bob Dylan credited Willie Dixon for the music of the song "My Wife's Hometown" on his album Together Through Life and gave special thanks to Dixon's estate.

Discography[link]

See also[link]

• List of blues musicians
• Chicago Blues Festival
• List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
• Boogie-woogie

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Dixon, Willie; & Snowden, Don (1990). I Am the Blues: The Willie Dixon Story. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-7043-0253-5
• Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon – Master Blues Composer: With Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. ISBN 0-7935-0305-1
• 1997 The Chess Box Snowden, Don "Willie Dixon" [CD booklet]. MCA Records, Inc.

External links[link]

• Willie Dixon at Allmusic
• Willie Dixon at the Internet Movie Database
• Willie Dixon at Find a Grave
• Willie Dixon at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. The Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School.
• Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation

Jesse B. Weaver Jr. (born June 22, 1962), better known by the stage name Schoolly D, is an American rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[1]

Career[link]

Schoolly D teamed up with DJ Code Money in the mid-1980s. His lyrics reflected urban realism, violence, and sexual bravado, making Schoolly D's one of the first gangsta rappers. He later embraced an afrocentric style, bringing Afrocentric culture to hip hop along with KRS-One.^[2]

Later, Schoolly D contributed songs and music to many Abel Ferrara films, such as "Saturday Night" (from Saturday Night! – The Album), as well as the title track from Am I Black Enough For You? which was played during the climactic shoot-out in Ferrara's King of New York; the title track of this movie from How a Black Man Feels and "Signifying Rapper" (from Schoolly's album Smoke Some Kill), which was used in the director's Bad Lieutenant.^[3] Because Led Zeppelin successfully sued due to an uncleared interpolation of its song "Kashmir" in "Signifying Rapper," the song was omitted from the soundtrack of the film and from subsequent releases of the film.^[3]

Composer Joe Delia tapped Schoolly to co-write and record "The Player" for Ferrara's film The Blackout, which Delia scored. Schoolly also wrote the score to Ferrara's 'R Xmas. In 2006, Schoolly D co-wrote the indie film soundtrack of the historical science fiction thriller Order of the Quest with Chuck Treece. The project series is produced by Benjamin Barnett, and Jay D Clark of Media Bureau. His last album, Funk 'N Pussy, features guest appearances by Public Enemy's Chuck D, Chuck Chillout, Lady B and a drum and bass remix of the classic Schoolly D track "Mr. Big Dick" (remixed by UK trip-hop crew The Sneaker Pimps).

Schoolly also did the music and occasional narration for the cult animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. He also created the song "Sharkian Nights" for the animated series 12 oz. Mouse.

Legacy[link]

Rapper Ice-T, who is often given credit for the creation of gangsta rap, says that Schoolly D was the first gangsta rapper.^[4]

The first record that came out along those lines was Schooly D's "P.S.K." Then the syncopation of that rap was used by me when I made "Six In The Morning". The vocal delivery was the same: '...P.S.K. is makin' that green', '...six in the morning, police at my door'. When I heard that record I was like "Oh shit!" and call it a bite or what you will but I dug that record. My record didn't sound like "P.S.K.", but I liked the way he was flowing with it. "P.S.K." was talking about Park Side Killers but it was very vague. That was the only difference, when Schooly did it, it was '...one by one, I'm knockin' em out'. All he did was represent a gang on his record. I took that and wrote a record about guns, beating people down, and all that with "Six In The Morning".^[5]

In the DVD extra on the King of New York, Schoolly D falsely claims to have invented the sport of snowboarding by sledding down Philadelphia hills on pieces of linoleum. (Snowboarding has roots in snurfing, which was invented in 1965, one year before Schoolly D was born.)

Funk metal band Primus mentions Schoolly D in their song "Harold of the Rocks" on the album Frizzle Fry.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

	Schoolly D "P.S.K. 'What Does It Mean'?" (1986) noicon 25 second sample from Schoolly D's first album.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

• 1986: Schoolly D
• 1987: Saturday Night - The Album
• 1988: Smoke Some Kill
• 1989: Am I Black Enough for You?
• 1991: How a Black Man Feels
• 1994: Welcome to America
• 1995: Reservoir Dog
• 2000: Funk 'N Pussy
• 2010: International Supersport

Compilations[link]

• 1987: The Adventures of Schoolly D
• 1995: The Jive Collection, Vol. 3
• 1996: A Gangster's Story: 1984-1996
• 2000: Best on Wax (5 Years of Schoolly D)
• 2003: The Best of Schoolly D

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

• Official website
• Schoolly D at the Internet Movie Database
• Schoolly D at Allmusic
• Schoolly D discography at Discogs
• Schoolly D's ArtistDirect entry
• Global Darkness interviews