Necro - Death Dealer
Incendiary Brooklyn rapper Necro is headed to manning bar, and as 3D’s Cyclone quickly gleans, his performance won’t be for the faint of heart.
Brooklyn's Necro, AKA Ron Braunstein, has always been an outsider in hip hop. The controversial rapper, returning to Australia following 2007's sold-out run, injects a heavy metal vibe into street music. He's known as “the King of Death Rap.”
Braunstein was raised in Brooklyn's Glenwood projects, bumping metal and ol' skool hip hop. He hustled drugs before switching to music. Today, Necro lords over a cult fanbase but, like his sibling Ill Bill, he's not recognised by mainstream hip hop. “I don't really give a shit because I can [still] fly to Australia and perform in front of my fans and fuck my groupies and get paid a lotta fucking money,” he says nonchalantly.
‘Mainstream’ to Necro means major labels - and he's fiercely independent.
The rapper has little regard for most big MCs, although he'll be touring with some of them Stateside come 2009’s Rock The Bells. Kanye West earns more than he does, but that's it. “I don't think he feels any better than I feel,” Necro says. “From a groupie perspective, or [in terms of] getting women, he’s not getting anything better than me. He doesn't look any better than me. He has a little bit more money than me maybe. But he also has to be a faggot – I get to be a rugged guy.
“I kinda view Kanye West as like disco. It's not really hip hop.” Ouch.
Necro views Lil Wayne's rock manoeuvres cynically, too. “He's considered to be a great lyricist where, if you compare him to what I'm doing, he's kinda Simple Simon.”
Necro shuns compromise. “I'm not gonna change what I'm doing so I could go make more money. I think that I could be a multimillionaire just doing what I'm doing.”
Just don't call Necro ‘horrorcore’. For him, that's “cheesy”. “I don't do horrorcore,” he bristles. “Horrorcore is a genre created by a bunch of assholes, people I don't respect, so...
“Necro's not a gimmick. I never created my thing to say, ‘Ooh, I wanna scare people and make a horror record. That's not how I do my shit. I'm not trying to be anything specific. I'm painting the pictures I wanna paint.”
Still, Necro brands his style as “death rap” - except when he's rapping about sex, then it's “porn rap.”
And 'Necro' isn't a persona, either. He really is all about guns, knives, boxing and beating muthafuckas up. “I didn't get into rap to be some pussy.”
Necro accepts that, within the wider hip hop scene, he's an “outcast.” He decries the fact that hip hop doesn't value individualism. (The dude doesn't see the irony that West also aspires to be an individual.)
The self-proclaimed “sickest fuck on earth” last released the album Death Rap in 2007. Nevertheless, fresh Necro material is due this year. The usually forthcoming MC isn't revealing anything about it at this stage, however. “I can't really talk too much about it because it's not done yet.”
WHO: Necro
WHAT: Plays Manning Bar
WHEN: Saturday 30 May
MORE: myspace.com/necro