“Awesome,” I thought to myself as our class strolled through the doors of the Bank Street Theatre. We were consumed by the darkness of the lounge scene with scarce lighting, deafening music, and a variety of people from students to hipsters to artists and so the list goes on. Seated in front of the front left of the stage, I had a pretty nice view of the Sucker Emcee himself, right before me. Still unsure of exactly what sort of performance I had come to see that day, I skimmed the pamphlet they had given me upon entering, and came across a small article in the very back concerned with the history of hip-hop.
Violent gangs had been prevalent in New York since before and throughout the 70’s. One man, Afrika Bambaataa, involved in one of these gangs made a trip to Africa and came out a completely changed man. Upon his return, he renounced the violence the gangs of New York promoted, and instead he created his own “gang” known as the Universal Zulu Nation, which was founded on peace and service regardless of color. In promoting their values and the betterment of people, thus was born the genre of hip-hop.
A Sucker Emcee is a one-man show with DJ Rich Medina in the background as support. Craig “muMs” Grant poetically shares his story of growing up in the Bronx from a struggling family. Although he learned good values such as family and friendship, in the Bronx it was inevitable to avoid the bad including the drugs and violence. All child “muMs” wants for when he grew up was to be an incredible MC. After years of college, schooling, nursing jobs with good pay, and so on, “muMs” finds that his one true calling is being an MC or Master of Ceremonies. He wants to move the crowd; he wants to make people feel what they can’t on their own. He quits his job and starts performing at a popular open-mic lounge, and not too long afterwards finds himself landing an audition for the main role of a television show. He describes how he had to hold onto hip-hop and abandon drugs, violence, and partying to really move on in life. Those of his friends who didn’t abandon that lifestyle, all ended up dead.
I found his story to be very inspiring and interesting, especially for those who were raised under similar circumstances in which money was tight and school seemed impossible. The way that DJ Rich Medina would play different melodies for different events in his life and how each melody could be upbeat or could be melancholy really impressed me. Instead of using a violin or piano, the director opted for hip-hop tunes that could be mixed and played with and it really seemed to tie in the life story of Craig Grant, a young boy from a struggling family in the Bronx. As interesting as the show was, I surprisingly found the questionnaire at the end to be far more intriguing however.
Whereas in the show, there was a practiced script, the questionnaire brought out the true people behind the microphone and DJ stand. With questions on the influence of hip-hop today, as well as the impact of writing/art, the thoughts Rich Medina and Craig Grant shared were profound. They gave their thoughts on how the media incorrectly portrays hip-hop to be solely rap concerned with indulging in violence, sex, and drugs and made clear that rappers such as Lil Wayne, Jay Z, and 2 Chainz are not artists to look to as leaders of hip-hop. The media not only does this with hip-hop but with many forms of art in which they transform an art into a moneymaking machine that loses the real essence of the art form. Most people of the lower class would be able to relate this, and overall I would recommend both the show and the questionnaire to family and friends.
