Necro (rapper)

Necro
Background information
Birth name Ron Raphael Braunstein
Born (1976-06-07) June 7, 1976
Origin Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Genres Hip hop, horrorcore, rap metal, heavy metal, death metal
Occupation(s) Rapper, record producer, filmmaker, actor
Years active 1989–present
Labels Psycho+Logical-Records
Associated acts
Groups:
Injustice
Secret Society,
The Circle Of Tyrants (in split up group)

Duo albums with:
Ill Bill
Kool G Rap (as the Godfathers)

Other Associated:
Non Phixion
Mr Hyde
Q-Unique
Goretex
Sabac Red
Nems
Danny Diablo
Captain Carnage
U-God
DMC

Produced for:
Raekwon
Sabac Red
Q-Unique
Ill Bill
Circle Of Tyrants
Non Phixion
Goretex
Mr Hyde
The Godfathers (Kool G Rap and Necro)

Ron Braunstein (born June 7, 1976), better known by his stage-name Necro, is an American rapper, actor, filmmaker, and record producer from Brooklyn.[1][2][3][4] He is the owner of Psycho+Logical-Records founded November, 1999. He is the younger brother of fellow rapper Ill Bill.[5]

Biography

Glenwood Projects

Necro was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in the Glenwood Houses where he lived for eight years from about 6 years old to age 14, when he moved to Canarsie. Born into a Jewish family, he is the son of two Israeli expatriates with ancestry from Israel and Romania.[6] Necro's father was a Romanian born Israeli soldier and his mother an Orthodox baal teshuva.[7]

He began his musical career at 11, playing in a death/thrash band named Injustice. He made a transition from heavy metal to hip hop.[7] In 1988, he started rapping after being influenced by his older brother, rapper Ill Bill. Necro derived his stage-name from the Slayer song "Necrophobic". Before that he called himself "Mad Mooney", which was a character from a Clive Barker book. He made his first demo in about 1990 and won a demo battle contest on the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show on WKCR-FM. In about 1993 Necro started rapping full-time and made a demo called "Do The Charles Manson". In 1995 he proceeded to rap on the Wildman Steve and DJ Riz show WBAU 90.3FM.[8][9]

Stylistic characteristics

Lyrical style

Necro lists Kool G Rap as one of his biggest influences in terms of multi-syllabic rhyme structure and content, as well as LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, Rakim and the Geto Boys. Necro is also influenced by heavy metal/death metal lyrics, as well as gangster/horror movies, musicals and popular culture.[10][11]

Musical style

Necro plays a hip-hop subgenre called horrorcore.[12][13][14][15][16][17] He has also played rap metal and has combined rap with death metal music.[18] Necro refers to his music as "death rap" to describe his style of ultraviolent hip hop and to distinguish himself from other genre labels created by the media. His music combines death metal beats with explicit raps about violence, death, the occult, drugs and sex.[4][19][20][21]

Production

Necro is a self-taught musician and has been playing instruments since the age of ten. He started producing hip hop beats in 1989 by looping up records and bought an Ensoniq EPS in 1991. In the following years he produced beats for artists like Non Phixion, Cage, Krist and Missing Linx, who all released independent singles. The first record he produced that received airplay was "No Tomorrow" by Non Phixion in 1996, put out on Searchlight Music/FatBeats Distribution.

The first wave of albums released on Necro's label were produced by Necro himself. This includes the debut solo albums of Non-Phixion members Ill Bill, Sabac Red and Goretex after he already produced 7 songs for Non Phixion's debut album The Future Is Now in 2002 and Non Phixion's "The Green CD' in 2004, and two albums for label member Mr Hyde [3][8]

In 2009, a beat Necro produced in 1997 was used by Raekwon on his album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II for the song "Gihad", which also featured Ghostface Killah.
"Suffocated to Death"
An example of Necro's blend of hip hop and metal.
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Death metal influence

Since the inception of his rap career Necro has been influenced by the genre of heavy metal, and more specifically death metal, which has altered his path into hip hop. He has been quoted in interviews citing death metal as a key influence for his rhymes, Chuck Schuldiner's Death in particular.[22][23][23]

Necro has said that he is heavily influenced by the thrash metal albums Kill 'Em All, Reign in Blood, Slowly We Rot, Leprosy, and Master of Puppets, and he has remarked that those albums take him back to "the '80s when shit was pure".[24]

Necro rapped over a death metal blast beat on the track "Suffocated to Death by God's Shadow", with the drums being played by Mike Smith from the band Suffocation.

Necro also collaborated with Scott Ian of Anthrax and Dave Ellefson of Megadeth, two members of the "Big 4", on the track "Evil Rules".

Necro references heavy metal acts in his rhymes as well. For instance, on "Underground", Necro states he will "penetrate your skull like a riff from Obituary's 'Slowly We Rot'" and quotes Metallica's "Master of Puppets" by saying "Taste me you will see / more is all you need / dedicated to / how I'm killing you". Over the years, Necro has increased his referencing and collaborations with underground metal acts, as evidenced by his 2004 album The Pre-Fix for Death, which features many references and collaborations with heavy metal musicians from Obituary, Hatebreed, Slipknot, and Voivod. In addition, Necro created his own group known as The Circle of Tyrants, named after a song by Celtic Frost. The Circle of Tyrants album also contains collaborations with artists from Testament, Exhumed, and Sepultura as well as song titles named after '80s thrash metal songs such as Slayer's "South of Heaven" and Metallica's "The Four Horsemen".[22]

Necro wearing a Scarface hoddie.Scarface hoodie.

Concepts

Necro is known for releasing conceptual songs. Songs have tackled topics like the Manson murders: "Creepy Crawl" [25] "Cockroaches",[26] "Scalpel",[27] "The 12 King Pimp Commandments",[28] "Dead Body Disposal",[29] "The Human Traffic King",[30] "White Slavery",[31] "I Need Drugs",[32] "Food For Thought", "S.T.D.", picking up women ("86 Measures of Game"), cannibalism ("Human Consumption"), suicide ("You Did It"), bondage and sex games ("EdgePlay"), watersports and micturition ("Piss"), life as a pimp ("Out the Pocket"), a revenge tale ("Some Get Back (Revenge)"), and war narratives ("First Blood").

Necro is a devoted fan of the 1983 film Scarface.[33] Necro sampled the main character from Scarface, Tony Montana, in "Cockroaches". Necro has also rapped, "I live scarface scenes" in "Gory Days",[34] and rapped Montana's infamous quote, "you fuck with me you fucking with the best",[35] whilst sampling the quote simultaneously in "asBESTos". Necro also took the title from "Push It to the Limit" which appeared in the film's soundtrack and used the title for his own song "Push it to the Limit". Al Pacino's work besides Scarface plays a recurrent theme throughout Necro's work. Necro's new collaboration with Kool G Rap is called The Godfathers as is the movie The Godfather that made a star of Al Pacino. In "asBESTos", Necro raps, "I'm completely rehabilitated, reinvigorated, reassimilated"[36] which is taken directly from an Al Pacino quote in Carlito's Way.[37]

Injustice

Necros's first band was Injustice formed in 1986, with Braunstein playing guitar. With this band, alongside his brother Bill, he played live shows with bands such as Napalm Death, Sepultura and Obituary at the Brooklyn club L'Amours. Injustice recorded two demos before splitting up in 1990 due to not securing a label contract.[21][38][39][40]

Psycho+Logical-Records

Necro founded the independent record label Psycho+Logical-Records[3][4] in November 1999. In 15 years, Psycho+Logical-Records has released over 40+ albums all available digitally online on over 300+ outlets & physically in stores on CD & vinyl.

Touring

Necro has been performing live since the age of 11. In 2007, Necro played the Download Festival at Donington.[39] Some of the groups he has opened for include Run DMC, Beatnuts, Sepultura, Kool Keith, Insane Clown Posse, Napalm Death & Biohazard. He has headlined for sold-out shows in some of NYC's mid-sized venues such as Brownie's, Wetlands, The Knitting Factory & SOB's.[8] During the summer of 2009, Necro was a featured artist on the Rock the Bells tour appearing in Toronto, New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and San Francisco.[41]

Controversy

Sounds of the Underground

In 2007 Necro toured with Sounds of the Underground. On July 25, 2007, he decided to leave the Sounds of the Underground tour. Necro commented, "I decided to leave the tour collectively with my manager and booking agent (both tour organizers) because we felt the tour's demographic was not receiving hip hop well. I was facing hostile, disrespectful crowds and had lots of glass bottles thrown at me. It was making a lot of people in the tour crew nervous and there was concern someone might get hurt (NOT ME). It was also being suggested that maybe I tone down my live show and not antagonize the already antagonistic crowd. I couldn't roll with that as it's not my style. I was holding back enough as it is but there is a line. All the bands on the tour loved us and everyone behind the scenes knew we displayed major heart and never once got fazed by the hostility. We finished every show according to our 25 minute time slot. I will make one thing clear for the haters: we NEVER got booed OFF the stage. Not once. Yes a ton of emo kids booed us at every show, but we had a twenty-five minute set every night and we stayed on stage for every minute of it, and we represented. Every show had at least 200 NECRO fans in the pit tearing it up, and our meet and greets were incredible! It's just a shame these little kids are so closed-minded. The majority of the hate was coming from mop top emo sixteen-year-olds who have no clue who the originators of metal are, and didn't respect my 'rest in peace' chant to metal legends (Dime, Cliff, Chuck, Piggy, Sob). As far as the tour organizers and I are concerned, you are my peoples so it's all love and I'm thankful for the opportunity to prove I can represent in a variety of situations. This actually did a lot for me and is just one move in many my team will make to blow NECRO up".[42]

Riot at Vancouver show

On Saturday March 21, 2009 Necro had an appearance scheduled at a Vancouver, Canada nightclub (Richards on Richards). When promoters announced that the show was canceled at the last minute, fans became violent and chaos broke out. People began to throw bottles at the venue's DJ (DJ Sage of the Vancouver hip hop radio show Urban Renewal Project).[43]

Perth incident

On June 5, 2009, Necro was fined $3,000 after breaking the jaw of a man in Perth, Australia. Necro pleaded guilty to the crime. He was arrested at his hotel later that day, forcing the cancellation of his show at Perth's Hyde Park Hotel.[44]

Ani Difranco

On May 18, 2010, Necro released DIE! On July 17, 2010 Necro revealed (through his website's forum) that he is being sued by Ani Difranco due to sampling her song "Used to You" for the track "The Asshole Anthem". iTunes and Amazon subsequently removed the album from their stores, and Necro re-released the album without this track included.[45]

Inspiration in Tori Stafford's murder

On March 23, 2012, jurors in the Tori Stafford murder trial in London, Ontario were presented with a connection between Necro's music and Tori's admitted killer. The court in the trial of Michael Rafferty heard testimony from convicted murderer Terri-Lynne McClintic that she listened to Necro the day she abducted Tori. Rafferty's defense attorney also noted similarities between the song "Garbage Bag" and letters McClintic had written when she was in a youth facility in 2007 and 2008; the letters described the hypothetical torture and murder of a person. At 5.12pm on 8 April 2009, the day of the murder, Terry-Lynne McClintic was positively identified as purchasing garbage bags. 8-year-old Tori Stafford had been found dead in a green garbage bag on July 19, 2009.[46]

Necro issued a press statement on 23 March 2012 saying that he does not support "anything that brings harm to children". Necro also says that he thinks he has been unfairly blamed for the actions of his fans.[47]

Discography

Main article: Necro discography

Solo albums

Production albums

Tours

Festival Appearances

Filmography

Films
Year Title Role Notes
2010 The Super Dt. Sardusky Film debut
2010 Avantegarde, Avantegarde Dt. Falconetti
2015 Heaven Knows What Skully

Directing and Necro films

Necro went to Brooklyn College for film for two years where he had access to film making equipment. His movie 187 Reasonz Y had an anti-cop theme with a police officer getting shot in the head at the end of the film. The film department was repulsed by Necro's visions and he received no support from them.[8]

Necro's film company has already released three direct-to-video features (187 Reasonz Y, The Devil Made Me Do It and the I Need Drugs music video).[8]

Acting

Necro has been taking classes on acting and honing his skills in the acting department. In May 2009, he premiered in a short video-film titled, Triumph Of The Kill acting the role of a serial killer clown. The short film was premiered on YouTube and MySpace.[48][49][50] In 2015, Necro appeared in the Safdie brothers's film, Heaven Knows What.[51]

Music videos

Solo videos

Non-solo videos

Other projects

See also

References

  1. ↑ Paine, Jake (2011-03-30). "Necro Releases Limited Edition Eight-Inch Toy Figurine | Get The Latest Hip Hop News, Rap News & Hip Hop Album Sales". HipHop DX. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  2. ↑ "Psycho+Logical-Records - CDs and Vinyl at Discogs". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  3. 1 2 3 "Walking The Thin Line Between Sex And Death With Necro". Hiphop-elements.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  4. 1 2 3 Archived January 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ "Ill Bill - Hip Hop Underground". Hiphopug.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  6. ↑ "Necro – "The Art of Necro" Interview". Hiphop-elements.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  7. 1 2 "sputnikmusic New NECRO INTERVIEW from Jew School". Slumz.boxden.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "Artist Page: Necro". Mainlinemusic.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  9. ↑ Archived October 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ "Necro - "Walking The Thin Line Between Sex And Death With Necro"". HipHop-Elements.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  11. ↑ Singer, Harmony. "Five Underground Rap Groups With Outrageous Lyrics". Articledashboard.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  12. ↑ Passantino, Dom. (7 January 2005)Top ten Hip-Hop gimmicks of all time Stylus Magazine
  13. ↑ Hess, Mickey. Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture, Volume 2, p. 369. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007 ISBN 9780313339042
  14. ↑ "The Electric Playground: Frankly Speaking: Halloween Horror-core Hip Hop". G4tv.com.
  15. ↑ "Horrorcore is Hillsboro: Bibster brings horror-themed rap to historic downtown". OregonLive.com.
  16. ↑ "The History of Horrorcore Rap". LA Weekly.
  17. ↑ "12 disgusting horrorcore rappers for your Halloween playlist". Aux.tv.
  18. ↑ "Album of the day: NECRO The Pre-Fix For Death". MetalSucks.
  19. ↑ Mar 06, 2008 (2008-03-06). "Top Death-Rap Artists – Trish's Picks". Trishvicious.buzznet.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  20. ↑ Archived March 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  21. 1 2 "Necro – Necro, Secret Society, Injustice, The Circle of Tyrants". Metalfanatix.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  22. 1 2 "Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth & Anthrax (The Big 4) playing Yankee Stadium! (played Indio, CA)". Brooklynvegan.com. 2011-04-30. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  23. 1 2 "NECRO "DEATH RAP" – Music Review by Brain Hammer at". Horroryearbook.com. 2007-10-16. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  24. ↑ "Death-Rapper Necro to Make European Live Debut in London". Blabbermouth.net. 27 November 2006. Retrieved 30 December 2011.
  25. ↑ "Necro - Creepy Crawl - Official Music Video The Manson Family". Mortal Gore. 2011-11-13. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  26. ↑ "Necro - Cockroaches Lyrics". Lyricsbay.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  27. ↑ "Scalpel Lyrics - Necro". Sing365.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  28. ↑ "Necro - 12 King Pimp Commandments Lyrics". Lyrics007.com. 2011-11-23. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  29. ↑ "Dead Body Disposal Lyrics - Necro". Sing365.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  30. ↑ "Necro - The Human Traffic King (White Slavery pt.2) | Watch Hip Hop Music Videos & New Rap Videos". HipHop DX. 2009-10-10. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  31. ↑ "White Slavery Lyrics - Necro". Sing365.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  32. ↑ "Necro - I Need Drugs Lyrics". Metrolyrics.com. 2012-05-21. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  33. ↑ NECRO (2011-12-15). "NECRO's Official Blog: Yo Necro whats your favourite scene in Scarface ? Respect from UK". Necroofficial.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  34. ↑ "Gory Days Lyrics - Necro". Sing365.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  35. ↑ "Necro - Asbestos Lyrics". Metrolyrics.com. 2012-05-21. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  36. ↑ "Necro Songteksten - Asbestos". Lyricsbox.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  37. ↑ "Carlito's Way Quotes". Quotefully.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  38. ↑ "Necro – Death Rap – Review – Stylus Magazine". Stylusmagazine.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  39. 1 2 "An Interview with Death-Rapper Necro". Metalunderground.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  40. ↑ "Tartarean Desire – Injustice – Death Metal band from USA". Tartareandesire.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  41. ↑ Archived October 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  42. ↑ "'Death' Rapper NECRO Leaves SOUNDS OF THE UDNERGROUND Tour". Roadrunnerrecords.com. 2007-07-25. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  43. ↑ "Rapper Necro's No-Show Sparks Concert Riot". Contactmusic.com. 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  44. ↑ Archived June 8, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  45. ↑ "NECRO UPDATE - JULY 2010 - NecroHipHop.com Message Board". Necrohiphop.com. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  46. ↑ "McClintic planned Tori's abduction, lawyer suggests". CBC. Mar 23, 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2012. The defence lawyer also played clips of violent-themed rap songs that McClintic once kept on her iPod, music the young woman admitted she listened to when angry. The songs were by a 'death rapper' known as Necro, the artist that McClintic once told police she was listening to on the day that Tori was abducted.
  47. ↑ "Necro (Jewish Gansters)". Icontact-archive.com. Retrieved 2012-10-25.
  48. ↑ "Necro Interview: The Sexorcist". Mvremix.com. 2013-05-30. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  49. ↑ "Triumph Of The Kill (death rap version)". YouTube. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  50. ↑ "Myspace". Vids.myspace.com. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  51. ↑ "Heroin, Too Close". The New Yorker. June 10, 2015.

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