MC Escher
- You may be looking for Escher and not even know it!
“M.C. Escher—that's my favorite "M.C."”
“Yo Escher, I'm really happy for you, and I'mma let you finish, but Eminem is the best white rapper of all time... OF ALL TIME!”
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898 – 1972), better known by his stage name MC Escher, was a Dutch musician who, after his art career was cancelled in the 1920s, became one of the most influential singers in human history, revolutionizing the hip hop, rap, and R&B genres. Escher helped invent the drug-addicted main character, abnormally large clothing, and the backwards-wearing hat, all essential tropes of modern rap. However, since the 1990s, people who couldn't even handle rap have recognized Escher not for his mad rhyming skills, but his abstract art, which is woefully low-effort.
Early life[edit | edit source]
Maurits Cornelis Escher was born on 17 June 1898 in Friesland, The Netherlands, the son of Eurodance expert George Escher and a woman who no one cares about. Even at a young age, Escher shown promise of becoming a rapper, woefully failing the second grade and being generally sickly. However, he was good at two things: capping hoes drawing and piano. This allowed him to be good enough to enter art college,[1] but he even failed that, causing him to be expelled in 1918.
After World War I, Escher traveled to Italy, seeking to sell his art to the rich for a lot of money. Sadly, they didn't want his stuff, and he boarded a steamship to America the next year. In the States, he learned how to fend for himself due to Morgan Freeman, who was in the Pink Panther Party at the time. Morgan gave him advice which Escher later published as a book in 1922, which was titled How To Be A Gangster. Escher followed the advice, getting out of prison by 1923 due to beating up maximum security inmates. He also finally ended his art career, seeking to be a musician instead.
Music career[edit | edit source]
In early 1924, Escher joined the Harlem Mousetraps, an affluent jazz band. However, he was accepted only due to the fact that he was the only white dude in Harlem.[2] Despite that, he proved that he could understand black music decently, making the locals benevolently call him wigga. It was during this time that Escher began playing around with rhyming and basic beats, inventing modern hip hop. He released the music as a single, naming it Gangsta Brilliance.[3] Meanwhile, Dutch Brilliance was becoming popular on the radio, being a hit single for Escher and making him one million dollars. However, his career was cut short during the Great Depression and World War II, as he erroneously applied as a Jewish dude during his citizenship test, causing him to be kidnapped by Nazis and be held hostage until 1945.
After that time, Escher would begin releasing music videos, featuring him posing as some hobo, wearing gangster clothing. These would be popular with the youth, much to the disdain of their parents. Escher would release more music videos during this time, becoming way more popular during his old years. However, in 1972, he stopped releasing music, saying that his art was actually making him money.
Death[edit | edit source]
Despite being perfectly healthy during 1972, while he was touring in South Africa, protesting apartheid, he was shot ten times by a baby. As a critically old dude, he realized that he should have been pro-apartheid, which was the norm in the country. He later died of complications, with his last words being "I am the true gangsta."
Discography[edit | edit source]
Albums[edit | edit source]
- Wigga: Jazz and the Dutch (1924)
- Gangsta Brilliance (1927)
- Fractal Flow (1953)
- Crystal Math (1955)
- Lessons in Rappin' (1960)
- Metamorphones (1966)
- Fuck You Apartheid (1971)
Singles[edit | edit source]
- Gangsta Brilliance (1927)
- Hand With Reflective Sphere (1935)
- Niggas Are Just Like Us (1957)
- I Studied Math and Became A Rapper (1960)
- It's A Fucking Waterfall (1961)
Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Unlike a certain mustachioed man.
- ↑ All the white dudes had fled Harlem a year prior due to the fact that black people were relatively fine there. This was offensive to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nativists, who wanted only whites to be well-off.
- ↑ The black community would be initially hesitant to make music similar to Escher's, choosing to stick to gospel and R&B, but they would eventually begin making rap during the 60s and 70s due to the increased crime rate.