Quasimodo on Speed

I was thinking about an old mate of mine named SheepHead. Thin, lanky Ludacris looking mofo with a massive afro. Well most of the time when he wasn’t sporting Sean Paul corn rows or day before payday fuzz. I did corn rows once – I rate she literally pulled out bits of scalp. Like Inglorious Barbers – She wants her scalps!

Anyways, Sheep got me thinking: You know, rap is the only music that has progressively been development by its listeners. The people developed the music to suit themselves, not the music finding its own fan base. They did this so that big scary buggers with bullet wounds can sing a song and not be compared to bee-bopping cracka white fellas dressed up like Elvis. I mean what else could they play in their rides? 

Picture it: Up in the hood – Rolling past in a chromed up, dropped down Caddy – looking all gangster and s**t with the smoke pluming out – rolling past too James Brown Whaaaaa! I Feel Good. At that moment when James gives it stick they all jump out, in a choreographed move that would make Travolta’s johnson go hard. They fleet footedly starting spinning around busting moves and 9mm caps in every direction. The nigga in the house dives out the window and walks up Hindivani style and they have a little face off. No man. Them gangsters need flow. They need something that makes them look scary and dangerous. “As I grab the Glock and put it to your head piece, One in the chamber and safety is off release” Now that’s some scary shizzle. Biggie going to put a cap in your ass.

Similarly they need something to listen to when they are happy. “M-E-T-H-O-D Maaaaan”. Coke-machine mofo’s can’t be caught listening to My Boy Lollipop. So they worked it out. Got a couple of fella’s with flow out the dogg house, got legends like Dre, JayZ and X to the Z to work on them and we were all blessed in the mid to late 90’s to this explosion of music that embraces violence. Not just outright spoilt-white-boy-anger violence like beating up malnourished homeless people. It was more to do with man-code violence. You front up then you better be ready to step up. Chitty chitty bang bang.

Sheephead guided me in the ways of the rap world. We met during the time the first Slim Shady album came out. I, admittedly, was still Getting Jiggy With It when the scene was first shown to me. See in the town of Witbank you never had many options for school-boy fun at age 14. There was only three things really: Drugs, Skating and stealing your parent’s car for joy rides. I like eating bread too much to filter meth’s through it and I look tragic in baggy clothes, so I was only left with the one choice: Steal my father’s car. 

I remember how scared out I was when I first did it. I couldn’t control my clutch foot as it shuddered and panicked like a localized epileptic fit. So embarrassing. Sheep and I silently pushed the car out of the garage, out the gate and into the road. Right. Let’s do this. Ted hoped onto my shoulder and off we went down the road. Nice and slow at first with the occasional head-banging clutch control. Down to Sheep’s mother house where we picked up the Gosheshe. A BMW 318. His first time as well. That’s where the proverbial s**t hit the fan. 

Boys will be boys and now it is no longer learning how to drive, it’s learning how to drive faster than the other guy. Well as fast as that little 1400 could go. I learnt more about shifts, clutch control, handling, FWD vs RWD, weight vs power and all the things Clarkson rants on about, in that one day of burning around, than I did Geography in 10 years of school. Hmmm, probably Maths too.

Our relationship always seemed to go the same way. We would hit back a few liters of beer, pinch one of our parent’s cars and go burn rubber (or clutch) to a mates house. Perhaps the most notable of the stories with my Dads car is stealing it one festive night and my folks came home earlier than expected. My Pops locked me out of the garden and just waited in the shadows for me to come home. I couldn’t shit for days. Talking to save my life I made up a story of how Sheep was in trouble so I had to take the car to get to him more quickly and blah blah…what is that noise?...blah blah….ah shit….”You see Dad I’m so sorry but I had to blah blah”. Mid-sentence and here comes the Gosheshe screaming round the corner. Sheep, the show off, decided to do a fly by. 

He cooks her around the corner, revs are way up in the red zone, kicks the back end of her out and gives off a celebratory HOOORAH out the window. As he comes straight he spots my Dad standing next to me and I witnessed a black man can go pale. SheepHead slammed on the brakes and lost control. The car swerved out and smashes up the curb – just outside of my house. Now me and this whole story I just put together is utterly and totally bombed. He knows if my Dad see’s him that’s him stuffed too. Witbank – everybody knows everybody’s kids. He kung foo judo chops the gear knob and grinds terribly into reverse. As my Dad starts walking towards the car Sheep slams his right foot down and drops his left off the clutch like it was on fire and catapults off backwards down the road.

To this day all I can think about, as he reversed down the road at pace, is the way Sheep's Moms 318 roared to life, hobbled, grunted, skipped and jolted…a bit like Quasimodo on speed.