“Egyptian Moses, 24 karat king tut piece
Fuck the Police, righteousness versus lust and deceit
Enough ice to manifest Christ like dust in the weed
Rest in peace Uncle Howie
Rest in peace Sean P!
Rest in peace Sean P!”
– Heavy Metal Kings (Egyptian Moses)
Powerful words from an eclectic emcee in remembrance of another. The final week of December tends to be traditionally a time of reflection and reverence … so I figured the most appropriate way to celebrate this time is to finally put to paper the information that I obtained from my second visit to the sacred city known as New York. Location? Brownsville, Brooklyn. In an effort to trace the roots and extend the legacy of the head of the Ruck Down Dynasty : the late, great, Sean P !
After a punctually swift exchange with Da Villins member Rim through online direct messages, I was able to establish a meeting time with the family remained in the wake of Sean’s transcendental leg of his journey that punctuated it’s end and beginning in early August of 2015.
Though the interview took a few weeks to come to fruition, everything went according to plan at the tail end of NYCC weekend as I took my foot off a Brooklyn bound train and arrived in a conclave similar in demographical statistics to the Jamaican-American community that I happily enveloped myself within during my first stay in N.Y. a month prior in Canarsie, Brooklyn taking it upon myself to pay homage to make a pilgrimage from the West to the undisputed birthplace and heart of the Hip-Hop culture.
Sitting on a project building stoop awaiting the arrival of the Price family, I passed the time by penning a loose tribute to the God emcee who was no stranger to iconoclast comparisons and (self) affirmations (*see “Jesus Price Superstar” Sadat X – assisted banger “God”). After penning my tribute of sorts, in short succession, Price’s Queen (and solid emcee in her own right) Bernadette Price appeared out of a Brownsville Housing Unit like something out of the “Price of Fame” video “Peter Pop Off”; except instead of Fame & Ruck in tow, accompanying Bernadette was both her son and Price’s childhood friend, the scion of knowledge in this tale who weren’t simply under the moniker where the ethers of thought is pulled from : Black.
Decked out in purple Decepticon wear, with a yellow “P!” emblem emblazoned on his letterman to honor the fallen Triggercon leader, Black began pulling out a myriad of comics from Sean’s personal collection; a collection that I had learned had been scattered about due to the rigorous pressures of life on the road that was earned by the superfluous scribe. Rim pulled up and hopped out looking like the Hip-Hop star that he is : adorned in jewelry, loud winter wear to stave off the bitter NorthEastern cold, and sporting (most notably) a million dollar smile that could light up any room – that evening the streetlights in Brooklyn would just have to cede in competition as our conversation in memoriam of a hip-hop legend waned deep into the night.
Sean Price was born in the Aries season of 1972 and raised out of a place where diamonds are forged : Brownsville Houses. Sean had a large family consisting of five siblings that was spread throughout the borough’s subsection, as Striggs (the spitting image of his more recognizable brother) regaled to me stories of their mother, how they as brothers interacted when they grew up two Housing Projects apart (Striggs respectfully resided in Van Dyke Houses) and how Ruck (P!) and his rhyming partner The Rockness Monsta met at a hideaway known as “The Future” to form Da Incredible Rap Team : Heltah Skeltah. Though a conversation of memories were passed around and comparisons to my native Los Angeles were espoused as they were put into contrast with my amazement at Brooklyn Tech’s “Transformers” turned “Warriors” offshoot of youth gang culture, I had to remember to steer the conversation into what I was there for, a topic that Sean Price undoubtedly would have loved chopping it up over : comic books.
Black met Sean at Marcus Junior High in the eighth grade and introduced the soon to be world renowned wordsmith to the works found in The House of Ideas. A jump off point for many readers that find themselves either visiting or becoming engrossed in comic book culture; Sean’s first books could be found in the works of Chris Claremont, Rob Liefeld, and John Byrne during their milestone X-runs. According to Black, Price was a proud owner of “The Phoenix Saga [and] the first appearance of Deadpool” in a collection that Price was known to carry in spots as insane as used shoeboxes. The way that most rappers have certified weed rollers, the relationship that Sean and Black established in middle school turned Black into Sean P!’s certified footman for comics, as Price traveled the world, keeping Price abreast on things that were going on in universe’s that housed Earth’s with numbers like 33 and 1218, fueling the imagination of one of Hip-Hop most storied and revered lyricists to ever touch a microphone.
In Strigg’s words “Black was like P’s phone a friend should a comic book [query arise]. An integral behind the scenes force to P’s craft , though Sean could be more commonly seen in between tours at the Dollar Tree stocking up on individual size rib-eye’s (Price regrettably passed in his sleep, possible due to health related complications) he did frequent Forbidden Planet, Galaxy Comics, Big Apple Comics, and Bulletproof Comics where he tended to participate in their popular video game competitions. Though Bernadette let me know that Sean enjoyed taking on any and all at 2K, his core team for Marvel vs. Capcom : New Age Of Heroes was Dr. Doom, Magneto, and Hulk – Sean always had a flair for characters that toed the line of heroics and villainy. This would explain why even though Sean would venture into Image and Vertigo imprints, his core time spent scanning the panels were with along with the rest of The True Believers.
“Copies of trades could be found in his makeshift library with pages ripped out, utilized for verses that he would up using to build his uniquely eclectic discography consistently inspired by the rich mythologies and aesthetics found in comic book culture. Take a braggadocious record like “Onion Head“, the first track that Rim heard from Sean which details Sean as something of a invulnerable and invested character … but not always so as he traveled the land housing his craft like Doctor Strange or Doctor Doom in the mountains away from society before they rose to prominence and became the household names that the world knows today. As Ghostface Killah was once a extra in Favreau’s Iron Man, Black says that his childhood compatriot “could have easily starred in a MCU film”, if Disney would have been intelligent enough to cut the check.
A purveyor of the books over the films, Black was disappointed that Sean would never get the opportunity to see Civil War, especially since one of Sean’s favorite cinematic productions was the Russo Brothers’ Winter Solider. Loeb and Ennis were known to be some of Price’s favorite authors, while when reading the storylines of Starlin’s Infinity Gauntlet or the senses shattering Loeb/McGuinness production of Planet Hulk, P would become the characters after he would read such trades, as described by both his family and friends, and channel that energy into the words that he would lay over instrumentals by some of Hip-Hop’s most allustrious of DJ’s : The Alchemist, 9th Wonder, Stu Bangas, !lllmind, the list goes on …
“How Hulk gonna lose to the Sentry when the nigga just hit him with a bunch of sunshine ?” Comedic as Price’s critique was of the grand finale to World War Hulk or his overall preferability to Ennis and Dillon’s Punisher over their cult classic Preacher, Sean Price was a true comic book head. A Street Fighter anime observer who never really dug manga but was on the hunt for comics written in Russian when it came down to appeasing his foreign fix, Sean Price truly was the type of person who would “say some shit now that people would get later”; and since the man lived through his words, that description of what he would vocalize could not describe the lifestyle of the transcended God any better. Loved by his family, respected by his stomping grounds to the point of murals of the Brownsville legend covering Brooklyn the borough over, Sean Price was and is a comic book head.
A Dollar Tree shopper, public transportation patron, and 2K tournament player, Sean Price will forever be a comic book connoisseur since the days of his adolescence to his rich presence immortalized in comic book pop aesthetics from his debut album forward beyond the grave.
Dressed in a cape and mask alongside Rock during Heltah Skeltah’s most recent outing, DIRT, Bernadette advices the Price faithful to be patient for the duo’s next and first partially posthumous project. Until then, Hip-Hop and comic book heads can rest easy as Sean’s legacy continues to spread with Bernadette releasing rhymes out her own book (see : “50 Villains Deep“) and Rim continuing to expand his own legacy as Sean Price’s fellow Boot Camp Clik members continue to stand strong, ten toes down, and cemented in the niche that they carved in the annals of Hip-Hop’s Valhalla.
Sean Price is the portrait of the comic book head : eclectic and a melding of countercultures, his friends and family would describe the wordsmith as Hip-Hop and comics intertwined. What could be more fitting in a genre that includes Lieber’s, Priest’s, and McDuffie’s that could be placed in a class of Mathers’, Diggs’, and Crooks’.
Sean Price : Father, Brother, Emcee, Artist, Creative, Pioneer, Purist, God, Brownsville, Brooklyn, Decepticon, Comic Book Head.
” Rest In Power To Sean Price. Salute to my brother Vinnie. We all Nice” – Ill Bill (Pentagram)
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C.V.R. The Bard
First Image Credit: Johnny Nunez/WireImage
All other Images captured by by C.V.R. The Bard