Image via Complex Original
Depending on who you ask, the words "hip-hop" were invented by Lovebug Starski or Keith "Cowboy" Wiggins or maybe even the Sugarhill Gang (but probably not). "In the first Hip Hop Family Tree book there are no less than three people who claim to be the originator," says cartoonist Ed Piskor. "I made no judgments of who the winner is, because who knows?"
If Piskor hasn't gotten to the bottom of it, probably no one ever will. For the past two years, the Pittsburgh-based comic book artist and writer has made it his mission to chronicle the history rap from the parking lots of the South Bronx to glitzy Manhattan nightclubs. Hop Hop Family Tree may be a comic book, but it's also an exhaustive, lovingly-rendered portrayal of the movement's explosive early moments. "It’s about community building and world building," says Piksor. "The whole idea that all of these forefathers came from the same place, so they all had a certain relationship to each other."
I caught up with Piskor to talk his life-long love of hip-hop, how he translates history to the page, and the '70s comics he and Marc Eckō both love.
Nathan Reese is a News Editor at Complex. If you want to talk comics, or hip-hop, or hip-hop comics, he's on Twitter. Hip Hop Family Tree 1975-1983 Gift Box Set is available now via Fantagraphics.
When did you first envision the project?
I really started putting together the idea on January 1, 2012. I’d been wanting to make some sort of comic book story that was within a hip-hop environment. I love the fashion of old hip-hop, graffiti. New York when it was super gritty, like from a Scorsese flick. It just made sense to do a linear, straightforward 'history of rap music' comic. I have a lot of trivial knowledge about hip-hop to start, and I could play that six degrees of separation game with most rappers and take it back to the South Bronx after a few generations. It just made sense to tell the story in this way. It’s about rap music, but not really.
Is there a story from the beginning of rap that was a favorite of yours to tell in comic form?
Yeah, tons of them! The one that a lot of people seem to latch onto is in that first book, the Blackout of ‘77. Grandmaster Caz and DJ Disco Wiz are doing their thing, and then the blackout happens. It’s a legendary story and the conceit of this story is that while the riots were going on during the blackout, the next day a lot of DJs started to show up on every block in New York because they were able to acquire and pilfer the necessary speakers, record players, and records to have a strong DJ arsenal. I just like the idea of that.
Where do you start when you decide to undertake a project like this? Looking at the bibliography, it’s clear you did your homework.
There are a lot of books. I would say the backbone, the spine of the book is Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists, because somewhere in there there’s a list of every major rap single from ‘79 to ‘98. I know that I have to make sure to cover all of those records in whatever year I decide to cover. It's for the first book that I used all of that information. With the second, a lot of rappers saw the first book and started getting in touch, so I had access to cool, interesting information. All sorts of found materials plus strategic interviews here and there.
Comics must have both ups and downs when it comes to telling a history as rich as this one. Were there stories you didn't include, or specifically chose to include, because of the medium?
The cool thing is that doing this comic the way that I am with my publisher, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. If you were to ask me, “Are there stories that take place in the future you can’t wait to get to?” that’s a different thing. The comic is exactly what I want it to be so far. There are obviously certain artistic challenges that are inside the book. Music isn’t the predominant subject, even though it’s called Hip Hop Family Tree. But you have to showcase some of that stuff. It’s like, how do you draw what “loud” looks like? You have to come up with some solutions for that kind of thing. I came up with a couple cool ones, making the color look like it’s vibrating off the page.
One thing I was struck by, just holding the books in my hand, is how much they look like something of their time, right down to the paper stock.
It was awesome because pretty much every comics publisher wanted to publish the book. So when you have something like that, then you can start to make demands and fight for the exact object you want, and this is what I wanted. I wanted this book to be the size that it is. It had to be on that paper stock. There was no way I was going to allow it to be printed on anything else. I am a cartoonist, but I think of book design in a very crucial way as well because the book is what matters to me most. You have to create something that feels good in the hands, and you can’t duplicate that old crusty paper digitally on an iPad. You can play around with the aesthetic online, but that look and feel, that touch aspect, is crucial.
This is something that would have lost so much if it was read digitally.
I agree, and, to me, the cartoonists and story people are kind of corny to me. It’s shallow. It’s just story. Stories have been told forever, but I’m trying to make a cool object that also tells a cool story.
It's sort of like digging for vinyl—you find a record that has that same kind of character.
I appreciate that, man. I take that as a big compliment.
Now you're two volumes in and working on the third. Do you have an end in sight?
The best way to answer that is to say that I’m contracted for six books, so far. We can keep that going if the series is still popular at the end of six. If it’s still fun for me, I’ll keep it going, no problem. The way that I’m building the series, I literally do not know what I’m gonna do next week. So I don’t know where it’s going to end. I know where I would like it to end in six books, and I think I could probably take it to about ‘87, around the death of DJ Scott La Rock, but I’m not gonna shoot for that. I’m just letting the thing breathe and grow on its own.
What’s happening is that as I continue researching and reading, I discover answers to questions that I didn’t even know I had, that are very visual, very cool, and are comic worthy, so I’ll put them in the book. I have no idea how far it’s going to go by the time I finish.
What's been the most exciting thing about rappers who are featured in the book reaching out to you?
Everybody digs it. I guess the thing I was most taken aback by was when I got my first random call from Biz Markie. It was out of left field—not too many rappers were getting in touch with me at the time. He was a dude who I had in the back of my mind as an audience for this. He was somebody I thought would dig this because I know him to be a historian of hip-hop, so that was pretty cool.
There haven’t been any complaints. Nobody has come out of the woodwork to say things were inaccurate. That will happen, I’m sure, and I’ll prepare myself for that, but in journalistic fashion, I make sure that I have several sources for any comic strip I’m telling. My argument will be backed up with citations, but I’m sure at some point, the law of averages says that some douchebag will come out of the woodwork to challenge me.
Considering you’re telling a historical story, is it hard to make sure that you’re giving a sort of emotional involvement to keep people interested?
In terms of character building and getting the pathos of certain characters across, I only really bother with that when it’s crucial to the story. There was that old vet TV show and the catchphrase is, “Just the facts, ma’am!” That’s kind of the way that I’m employing my storytelling methods with this. I’m not trying to create some emotionally resonant comic. My brain doesn’t even work that way, man. I’m pretty ice cold about shit. I just wanna get the information across. It’s like edutainment. Get the point across. If some emotional thing is crucial and I think it would yield a better story, I try to put it in there. I’m about 14 pages from finishing Book Three, and the saga of a young KRS-One is one of my favorite stories to tell in there. It has some heart to it, the stuff that he’s gone through as a homeless kid, so I try to get that across.
Would you say this is turning out to be the most significant project you've ever attempted?
It could be my life’s work, and it’s been the only thing that I’ve worked on for the past two years. The books sell good, it’s keeping a roof over my head, which justifies how much time I spend on it. It’s a lot of fun. The response is also good, which is just a very cool byproduct. I feel like I’m in a real good place at this very moment.
You point out some clear parallels between hip-hop and comic book cultures. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, I’m a fan of both cultures. Sometimes people make the mistake of calling them media, but it’s deeper than that. If you meet a real comics fan you can see that every piece of their life is wrapped up in their comics fandom, and it’s the same thing with rap music and hip-hop culture. It was something that was always in my mind, something I’ve always thought about. I can make a very strong argument about the relationship. Just a few months ago, I spoke for an hour at Harvard about the subject. I’m not just BS-ing it.
Have you met other people who are both heavily into rap and comic books?
Yeah, I guess so. Plenty of my friends. In the back of each of those books, I have 10 pin-ups in each volume–so 20 guys so far have work printed in the books. They’re kind of like my guest emcees. They’re rap fans and they were excited. They hit me up saying, “Yo, man can I do a Public Enemy pin-up? Can I do a Cold Crush Brothers pin-up?” and I’m like, “God damn right, you can.”
Marc Ecko started the Complex enterprise, right? He was on a Combat Jack podcast. [Ed Note: Here it is, if you want to check it out] He was being interviewed about being a fan of the Marvel Treasury Edition books, like the big Howard the Duck books and all this kind of stuff. These came out in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. They’re about the size of my Hip Hop Family Tree book, which is why I chose that format. I wanted it to look like it came from that exact time period. I thought that was kind of cool that he was talking about comics like Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, which shared that format, on that Combat Jack show. That’s another example of the hip-hop comic book fandom.
