The Deep and Nasty Hip Hop of DEADLEE
A year ago, I had the pleasure of meeting and sharing the stage with down and dirty rap / hip hop artist Deadlee. We both performed at the Fresh Meat Festival in San Francisco, which lasted 4 nights, with the same lineup every night. That meant I got to see Deadlee do his thing 4 nights in a row. This never got tired.
The man knows how to work a crowd. While most rappers aren’t afraid to be explicit about sex in their lyrics, and show their torsos and sexy dancers on stage, Deadlee embodies hardcore man on man sex in his performance. This sexy vato gets up there busts moves and lyrics that guarantee the viewer/listener will not leave without having some understanding of just how macho and hot the act of taking it up the ass can be.
Deadlee’s songs celebrate and mourn what it means to be queer and what it means to be brown in the U.S. In his song “Carnival In My Mind,” Deadlee turns police brutality and harassment into a sex fantasy “in order not to go mad” says Deadlee, reflecting on the numerous amount of times he has been stopped by the cops. The song is not just about fantasy, however, he goes on to say that some of the song was based on Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, who in 1997 was beaten and sodomized with a broomstick by cops in Brooklyn after one of the cops mistook him for a man who punched him at a bar. http://nyti.ms/9G1ZUS
Another song that celebrates and mourns is “Day Of the Dead,” one of my personal favorites. With a low and gritty voice he starts off eerily rapping about the imagery of the big skeletons that can be seen dancing and bobbing their heads in the streets on el dia de los muertos, the Mexican holiday that celebrates and honors the dead. From there he sings about the realities of being queer in the “wrong place [at the] wrong time.” Deadlee is joined by guest artist Drastiko from the hip hop group SALVIMEX. I asked Deadlee if he could talk a bit about the song. “I am picking up the mic for all the gay people who have lost their lives because they were gay, trans, etc. I am picking up the mic for them and taking revenge. The Spanish lyrics are a description of the famed celebration of the Day of the Dead; we are celebrating the lives of the LGBT who have died.”
Deadlee’s lyrics are real and current. He delves deep into harsh and complex subjects and lightens it up on occasion with songs like “Nasty,” an anthem to the diversity in LGBT communities-- not only diversity in the people, but the diversity in the ways we like to get nasty. “Nasty” will be featured on the Bad Flower 3 playlist, which will be launched within the week.
Check out Deadlee’s blog/web page at http://anotherdeadleeblog.typepad.com/ and go to iTunes or CD Baby and buy his album Assault With a Deadlee Weapon.
DEADLEE, yo, y Shawna Virago at
Fresh Meat 2009
