Hip-Hop's Mysteries of the Unexplainable

From RA the Rugged Man’s trip on board a UFO to P Diddy’s million-dollar Yeti hunt, amateur paranormal snoop and ill-informed hip-hop aficionado Rat Banjos explores the eerie other-worldly events that have shaken the rap world…

“For nearly a hundred years, ghosts and UFOs have been sighted in the alleys and streets of the planet earth. Probably longer than that even. And not just ghosts and UFOs either – there are tonnes of unexplained phenomena out there. And I should know, I’m a professor.” These are the words of the esteemed Professor of Paranormal Items at Haffhoff College, David Snips, spoken in gravely tones over a hot cup of tea in my two-storey house. Over the past seventeen months, David and I have been collating data and snuffling about like psychic-investipigs on the hunt for paranormatruffles. Our goal: to uncover evidence of the fascinating link between mysterious extraordinary events of a spooky nature, and rap music.

Professor Snips was the one who first noticed that hip-hop stars were often more prone to whining about ghosts, ghouls and alien abductions than stars in other fields of music, such as classical, alt-country and world. He contacted me late one night and asked if I wouldn’t mind putting him up while he continued his controversial studies, Haffhoff College having had no record of his ever having worked there. I agreed at once, being sleepy at the time, and the results of our joint venture can finally be published for the first time here on Oh Word.

It hasn’t been an easy time – one night, David tried to scare me in my sleep by drawing ghosts on the insides of my eyelids and videotaping my terrified reaction. This resulted in my angrily pushing him down into some milk. On another occasion, I forced Professor Snips to watch me masturbate. But we got there in the end, the only casualty of our studies being Professor Snips himself, who died while we were looking for a zombie.

Read on with an open mind, for the tales of rap’s unexplainable mysteries you are about to delve into will shock, disturb and titillate you. And remember, there is a ghost behind you right now…

QUEENING OUT EMINEM’S CLOSET!
Famous white rapper Eminem may cause outrage with his amusing homophobic rapping, but there’s a good reason for his verbal assaults on bummers – the bleached blonde rascal is haunted by a gay ghost! For the past fifteen years, Marshall Mathers has been repeatedly visited in the night by a camp spirit that likes nothing more than to whisper queer theory into his ears as he sleeps, sometimes even going as far as to lift the bedsheets to get a look at Eminem’s cock and arsehole.

“That bloody apparition’s been making my life a right misery,” admits Mr Shady. “Just the other night I was tucked up for a sleep, and I could hear this quiet voice coming from the corner of my room. I realised it was that puff spook again, and it was reading Jean Genet’s ‘Querelle of Brest’! I had the dual discomfort of being frightened shitless by the sight of a shimmering white form floating at the foot of my bed, and sickened to the stomach by its descriptions of a lifestyle I find quite repulsive.” Eminem’s subsequent audio spleen-venting over man-on-man kissing and fondling can simply be explained away by such experiences. “Fucking right,” he chips in, before downing another pint of Waggledance.

COMBUSTIN’ LOOSE!
Scientists are still scratching their collective beard about the frankly shit-scary phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion (whereby some bloke or other erupts into hot flames of fire and dies all burnt for no reason whatsoever), but they’re a baby-step or two closer now to understanding its causes – all because of the Neptunes. The popular young music producers/superstars are the first to admit it was an accident, much like the one that led Louis Pasteur to discover penicillin by leaving out a half-eaten beef and mustard hoagie, but one night – after a recording session that had pop sensation Kelis dueting with recently reformed UK indie megastars The New Fast Automatic Daffodils (the results of which, according to Rolling Stone magazine, were “variable”) – Pharrell Williams watched in dismay as musical partner Chad Hugo woofed up in flames for no apparent reason. Pharrell explains, “Me and Chad were all about to hit the hay when I notices somethin’ weren’t right. Somethin’ smells of toast. And kiss my balls, it’s Chad!”

As sure as a morning of head-in-hands depression follows a night of murdering cheap prostitutes, Chad started to burn. Seeing as both Williams and Hugo are staunch anti-smokers, both knew this wasn’t the result of an unattended ‘fat blunt’ being stuck to Chad’s pyjamas, but a genuine Spontaneous Human Combustion. Luckily, Pharrell Williams’s quick thinking saved the day – upon seeing the amber flames licking Chad Hugo’s soon-to-be-corpse, he bunged a bedside cup of Justin Timberlake’s tears over his diminutive buddy extinguishing him at once. [Note to self: try and finagle some kind of gag incorporating the song title of ‘Cry Me A River’ into this article.]

2-PAC TO THE FUTURE!
We’ve all heard nightmare-inducing tales of alien abductions, Loch Ness Monsters and strange tall monkeys that come out of the sea and bite at your legs, but no investigation of the uncanny would be complete without mention of that most heart-stopping of terrors: Future Cognition! That’s right, the ability of a hip-hop artiste to predict what’s going to happen before it actually does is something often overlooked when they’re handing out worthless lumps of moulded slag at the MOBOs and Grammy’s, but it’s an all-too-real subject that deserves more than a passing mention in a soon-to-be-defunct irreverent hip-hop website.

The first non-white music recording artist to predict something before it actually happened was Rusty Boo ‘Horsetoes’ Coleman, a bluegrass nylon-plucker from 1930s Alabama who correctly predicted the film ‘Spies Like Us’. After that, in February 1987, all three members of Run DMC shared a premonition of the Zebrugge Ferry Disaster and were rewarded just weeks later with their fevered dreams being broadcast on live television before their eyes. Furious that the authorities they had tried to warn hadn’t done anything to prevent the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise, Run DMC refused to release a record for a full six months after the tragedy.

Current rap stars who claim to be able to see into the years ahead without having yet lived them include Nas, Blade out of Mark B and Blade, and football pundit/rapper John Barnes (who was recently chastised by television executives for announcing live on air that “death will rain down upon whitey in the summer of 2006”).

MONEY, CASH, HORSE (-MAN)!
Funny-faced rap legend Jay-Z might well be proud of the critical and commercial acclaim afforded him over his ‘The Black Album’ but he might well have thought about calling it ‘The Fuck Me, I’m Being Chased By A Headless Horseman Album’ if recent events in his life had happened on or around the time he was thinking up a title for his ‘The Black Album’. This is because Jay-Z (real name Jason Zimmerman) regularly spots a spectral horse and carriage careering across the front lawn of his estate at night-time. Admittedly, this usually wouldn’t be considered out of the ordinary, seeing as a bridle path does run through Jay-Z’s property and he has granted permission to local farmers with regard to its use, but what’s that perched atop the carriage? Yes, a headless horseman.

“Quite, quite baffling,” exclaims Jay-Z when pushed for a response to the matter over a glass of Saumur Réserve Jules Peron, Caves des Vignerons de Saumur 2002 and a bite of a po’boy sandwich. “I was taking my evening constitutional on November 17th, 2003, when I heard the unmistakeable whinny of a purebred Haflinger from behind the gorse bushes. I stopped in my tracks and – lo and behold! – a headless horseman dashes out from the western lawn and shoots right past me. Almost knocked me off my feet, it did. And it’s been back for a visit a good four or five times since. Little bugger can give you quite a scare if he catches you off guard.”

Amusingly, Jay-Z’s estate was built on the burial ground of the many wretched victims of the Horseman Culling of 1789, whereby the entire county’s horseman workforce were lined up and beheaded, then buried along with their respective steed, for a joint act of attempted parliamentary treason. “Yes, I heard that,” admits Jay-Z, “But it all sounded like a pot of hogwash before. I’m more inclined now to think there’s a kernel of truth in the whole ruddy thing. Now fuck off out of my garden.”

STOP PRESS: SPOOKY UPDATES!

Mike Skinner, 16, of hip-hop combo The Streets claims he sighted a big cat on a recent holiday to Devon. “It was really big and it kind of roared rather than miaowed,” giggled the amazing singer.

What’s the similarity between soul legend Stevie Wonder and rapping collective Non Phixion? Well, it turns out that they were all on the same Mediterranean cruise when their ship passed through a rainstorm – of wasps! “Damn tootin’!” said Wonder at the time, “I been through all kind o’ storms, all kind, we’s talkin’ frogs, toads, rats, goddamn fish, nearmost ever’thing that ever did fall out the sky come near fall on me, but never no wasps before!” Terrified passengers were led to safety from the dropping, stinging beasts by Non Phixion, all of whom never travel by sea vessel without a thorough examination of the boat’s schematics beforehand.

MF Doom has a poltergeist in his downstairs toilet! The prolific hip-hop musician is so scared to use the haunted lavatory that he refuses to do a number two in there, and will only do a number one if he leaves the door open and someone waits in the hallway for him. The cheeky little spook apparently likes nothing more than to unspool the bogroll, turn the taps on and off, and chuck MF’s Star Wars figures about.

Next year sees the release of De La Soul’s first foray into movie-making, with a co-directed effort (alongside TV’s Kelsey Grammer) of ‘Cowslicer!’ – a horror spoof based on the numerous ‘cattle mutilation’ reports that made the news when the rap trio were growing up in the 70s. All three collaborated on the script with the star of TV’s Frasier, and Pasemaster Mase is set to direct. “With any luck it’ll be fucking excellent,” commented Grammer.

Check back here regularly (like, once a year maybe) for more scary updates. For now, this is Rat Banjos signing off and wishing you horrific nightmares that pin you to your sweat-soaked bedsheets and make you pray for death. Ciao!