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Crooked I (Part 2): Calendar Challenger :: MC Paul Barman looks at the West Coast MC's HIstorical Year of Weekly Recaps

By Paul Barman   Photography by Paul Barman

03/07/08 :: URB 152

Thirty weeks after "Gangsta MC," Crooked I's first weekly online freestyle, he was sitting on the curb with a downhearted, but healthy and young, MC. In the middle of the pep talk, they saw a scene Crooked described in that week's song:

"The other day I was in front of the barbershop/I seen a man with one leg get up and start to hop/He had a smile that was hard to stop/Now think of his hand next time you lookin’ at the cards you got/Thought about it as I pulled out of the parking lot/Over the years I ball, look at all the cars I bought/Then I had to thank God that my bars are hot/I’ma make it to the top, X marks the spot."

In a few weeks time, Long Beach's Crooked I will complete his 52nd and last Hip-Hop Weekly. The series introduced his skills and personality to the world through the web. When future heads study great lyricists, a chronologically sequenced collection of Weeklyz will provide a rhyme capsule for both America's events and Crooked's personal life in 2007 and 8. We hear about Obama's early success in Iowa, and the deaths of Pimp C, Crook’s niece Miracle and the trapped Utah miners. Crooked gives a vicious vivisection of mainstream hypocrisy in its treatment of violence in rap, The Sopranos and University of Virginia killings. Generous with praise, he attacks only when rappers come at him first. He embraces the fact that he rhymes fresh as anyone in the upper echelon, yet stands only halfway up the ladder to success. During the week that his little brother is incarcerated, Crooked roasts with such emotional intensity that, the following week, he half-apologizes.

Lyrical topics as recurrent as beats from Dr. Dre and DJ Toomp: father's abandonment, mother's OG status and the declaration that her son is the best rapper alive; the need for the West Coast to reject the ''lobsters-in-a-barrel'' mentality; "N.W.: New West, Next Week, whatever." Crooked laughs loudly on the adlib tracks and, in case you didn't catch it, he stops the beat to repeat the last punchline: "Until I tattoo 'Crooked I' on my dick, keep my name out your mouth." We hear him return from recording trips in Atlanta and New York. During Week 9, it's clear he's got the flu and feels like crud, but rips regardless.

Rapping since before his voice changed, Crooked I dropped out of school young to ''help my mother with the groceries and keep sneakers on my feet." He ran "from the street corner to the library." Here's a syllabus segment from "The College of Self":

48 Laws of Power ("the executive bible"), by Robert Greene.
What Makes the Great Great by Dennis P. Kimbro. ("Top on the list during hard times.")
The Laws of Success, ("and everything") by Napoleon Hill.
The Isis Papers by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing
Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

On ''Imagine,'' aka Week 25, Crooked writes his own inspirational book. "They trying to close the door on people who squeeze through/Can’t leave rap alone, the game needs you/Gotta hustle like me, I never sleep dude." Dreams and their value are foundational.

"If you have a dream, you have to follow it. In the hood they'll make you an outcast for having a dream,” he says. “I'm trying to remove that negative aura. Bring dreams to reality. My dreams are so vivid now homie that I dream songs. One day I'm going to release a full album of the songs I wrote in my sleep."

{Despite having third party websites host his astounding series, Crooked I’s www.hiphopweeklyz.com launches with the final installment, Week 52. The site will archive the series plus provide a virtual stage for aspiring artists.}

{{And check out MC Paul Barman's own musical madness here}}