Story time kids, gather round.

When I got to the H.S. of Music & Art I had already been an EmCee for a couple of years, spitting my little rhymes around the neighborhood cyphers, but up at M & A the competition was another level. We had the Kango Crew; Dana Dane, Slick Rick and them, they had routines that were sure shot crowd pleasers back in 1980-81. We had the FRESH 3 MCs, heavy competition. A whole lot of nasty MCs in one lunchroom, banging beats on the table and taking turns impressing the crowd. Everyday you had to come with something new and fresh, you couldn’t run the same shit over and over. Most of these established crews were already Sophomores, so us Freshmen banded together to form our own crew and write routines. My little crew consisted of some of the baddest musicians (I was an art major myself) and we picked a name for ourselves real quick: “The Grandmaster 4 MC’s”... it was Eddie Ed who was from Marcy and played classical violin, Charnette Moffet who was already playing Upright Bass in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and my man Teru (True God) Alexander the illest drummer I had ever heard. Back then, most EmCees only rocked over a handful of simple beats; it was either “Big Beat” by Billy Squire, or “Rocket in the Pocket” by Cerrone. Even my arrhythmical caucazoid ass could keep time beating on the lunch table to those joints... but when my man Teru turned his gold nugget ring around and started hitting Captain Sky’s “SUPER SPORM”...



WHOA! The whole lunchroom went berserk! The fellas said “HOOOO” and the girlies screamed. I tried so hard to catch that beat, I became obsessed with it. I would lay awake at night trying to write to it in my head...

Anyways, that’s where this particular piece comes from, which I decided to offer as a one time, limited edition print with the good folks at House of Roulx... but we only printed 20 pieces, so they will disappear quickly.

- KEO X-MEN