Reports have rushed in through Twitter and Facebook about the purported death of hiphop iconoclast Rammellzee. Before the skittering lyrics of Outkast, the space odysseys of Deltron, the spiraling flustered funk of Weezy, or the free-association spiritual vomiting of DOOM, there was Rammellzee. Best known for his ten minute trek into the mathematical chaos underlying tensions between rhyme and reason — with fellow lyricist K-Rob and production work from Basquiat in “Beat Bop”, as featured in the acclaimed hiphop documentary Style Wars — Rammellzee explored the futuristic poetics of hiphop at the dawn of its global diffusion. In many ways, he brought the abstract geometrical relations inherent in graffiti calligraphy to the art of freestyling and wordplay.
Shit got mad wild, and we’re lucky to have any of it live on video; this one is from the Rhythm Lounge in ’83 with Toxic C1 on the cut and Basquiat’s video editing.
Before all that, Rammellzee wrote a theoretical account of his undertakings in ’79. A revised version of the manifesto, “Ionic Treatise Gothic Futurism” is available on Rammelzee’s website. At times a cosmic revelation, and at others absolutely baffling, the treatise theorizes Ram’s art form as organized by the principles of Gothic Futurism, and identifies his style as one of Ikonoklast Panzerism.
Knowledge knowledges knowledge, the elevation of WILD STYLE-knowledge is concluded as a SYMBOL DESTROYER, ARMOURED, MEDIEVAL MECHANISM. This formation shall be known as IKONOKLAST PANZERISM: R.O.K.: GOTHIC FUTURISM, THIS IS WILD-STYLE CORRECTED.
In this work, Ram illustrates the hermetic codes hidden in graffiti writing, a subconscious descendant of monk calligraphy during the medieval period, and he maps out certain mathematical equations showing cultural connections among peoples across the fluxed dimensions of space and time.
A talented artist, Rammellzee expanded his fantastical universe in the realm of painting and sculpture. He created his own costumes for live performance, influenced perhaps by Japanese anime robots; perhaps by superhero comics; or just his own surreal realities, shaped by the flood of information, values, and histories passing through modern day Gotham.
There’s currently no official confirmation of Rammellzee’s terrestrial death. His difficult legends and bizarre mythologies are zigzagging across the Internet. Few try to make sense of his liquid alchemy; most simply bask in the revelry of his hyper-lyrical expressionism.
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