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#8: Hip-Hop And Its Connection to Comics

#8: Hip-Hop And Its Connection to Comics

Adam Dash
March 10, 2025

Good morning! Welcome back to another edition of the SoundCentric newsletter!

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Deep Dive

Two things can captivate my attention for two plus hours and cause me to go down a YouTube rabbit hole directly after: rap music and superhero movies.

Before you label me a nerd, which might be true and a completely separate discussion, it must be noted that rap has been the most popular genre since it overtook rock in 2018, and Marvel has raked in 26.2 billion dollars in the worldwide box office as of 2023. So, you probably agree with me even if you don’t want to admit it. We’re all little Urkles.

There are obvious connections between hip-hop and comics, like Ghostface Killah’s album Iron Man and MF DOOM’s entire persona. There are rappers who love to reference comics like Eminem and his infatuation with Christopher Reeves, which helped spark his idea to have multiple personas.

Shady’s “Business” and music video for “Without Me” are also clearcut examples of Em’s love for comics. Jay-Z even quotes the Joker’s famous line from The Dark Knight verbatim on Kanye’s “So Appalled.”

These are all pretty surface level connections, though. Sure, there may be a rapper or two who throws a pretty easy simile together using Batman and then adds a line about Robin/robbing to “blow your mind away,” but I was looking for something a little deeper. Why is it that I am so captivated by these mediums that seem so different from an outside view?

One of the first major connections I noticed between the two art forms were the similarities between collaboration albums and the Avengers franchise. Who doesn’t love the Avengers movies? My mom can’t sit through a Netflix show, but let me tell ya’, she’s happy to look at Chris Evans flaunting America’s ass for a few hours.

There’s nothing more exciting for superhero fans than watching our favorite cape crusaders team up on the big screen for a single film. This is the same excitement I felt last year when J. Cole’s label, Dreamville, announced that they’d be releasing a new collaborative album that same day titled D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape. The superheroes in this case: J. Cole, J.I.D, Ari Lennox, EARTHGANG, Bas, Lute, Cozz, and Omen.

Honestly, I think other labels should be watching what Dreamville has done and start replicating it. Instead of loving a single artist or superhero, like a J. Cole and a Tony Stark, these collaboration projects have made me fall in love with the entire Dreamville/Marvel universe. The same way this album gets me excited as hell to hear a Lute, Cozz, and Omen song, which are relatively smaller artists, is similar to how Marvel can make one of my favorite films with a movie that features Thor, Hulk, and Korg in Ragnarok. Not to mention, DJ Drama’s adlibs act as a fun narrator throughout the album like a Deadpool.

Oh, speaking of Wade Wilson, I love when rappers break the fourth wall. For those who aren’t familiar with that phrase, breaking the fourth wall is when a character references the fact that they are in a movie and you are watching them, often for comedic effect. Deadpool takes advantage of breaking the fourth wall throughout the films, which leads Deadpool to be in the same universe in which Ryan Reynolds is People Magazine’s “Most Sexy Man Alive.”

Similarly, I enjoy when artists reference the creation of a song within the song. A common example is when an artist instructs the producer before a song starts, like when Kanye tells Pharrell to “turn [his] headphones up” on “Gotta Have It.” Dave Chappelle hilariously made fun of this on his show in the early 2000s.

Although it’s cool when they do that, I like when they reference the song in the middle of the song. Lil Wayne does this on Tyler, The Creator’s “Hot Wind Blows” when he says “I fuck ’round and slow the beat down and take the drums out/And speed up my flow” as the beat literally slows down, the drums stop, and his flow does pick up. It is really cool to see how these artists at the peak of their skill interact with the instrumental at hand.

Nas used a similar tactic in his verse on Kanye’s “We Major.” His whole verse starts with him asking the people in the studio with him what style of Nas he should use on the track. Nas raps “At the studio console, asked my man to the right/’What this verse sound like? Should I freestyle or write?‘/He said, ‘Nas, what the fans want is Illmatic, still’/Looked at the pad and pencil, and jotted what I feel.” Nas brings us right into his headspace to show us his process when he begins to write a verse.

A good hero can also be captivating, but boy do I love a great villain. Heath Ledger’s Joker, Tom Hardy’s Bane (if you think this is a hot take, find a different article to read because he’s great), and Willem Defoe’s Green Goblin all had me at the edge of my seat for over two hours.

I also tend to love some quite despicable rappers. My best example, Freddy Gibbs. I’ll start you with a gentle line just to dip your toes a little into the evilness of some of his lyrics: “Motherfuck euthanasia, I’ll lace your food up with razors/Make you gargle with saltwater, excuse yourself from my table.” Is this an awful thing to do that no one should follow? Yes. Do I run slightly faster on the treadmill when I hear it? Yes, again. We all love a good villain.

As much as we would love to think everything we hear in songs are true, rapper’s put on a persona. How much of that persona is an exaggeration of real-world events depends upon the artists, but there is truly an art to making this persona. Pusha-T says he is the Martin Scorsese of coke rap for the dark tales he so often writes.

Benny the Butcher says on “Uncle Bun” that he “sold dope to a fiend while she pregnant, emotionless/I’m not a caseworker, that’s not a reason I sold the shit.” That’s objectively the most evil thing I’ve ever heard, but it is similar to how I am captivated by Homelander letting an entire plane crash to protect his image. When someone plays their role to perfection, no matter how much I may disagree with his or her actions, you’re still going to have me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next line/scene.

Similar to how rapper’s adopt the persona of the villain to add a grittiness to their projects, they may also adopt a persona to help them get away with a line or two. The best example, Slim Shady. On Em’s track “When I’m Gone,” he lets his daughter know that the crude lines she may hear him say aren’t coming from Marshall, but from Slim. He raps, “That’s Slim Shady, yeah, baby, Slim Shady’s crazy/Shady made me, but tonight Shady’s rock-a-bye baby, ha.” How else could someone rap about killing his wife and mother, assaulting women, and beating up men?

Tyler, the Creator uses his alter ego Wolf Haley similarly. Wolf Haley is “the darker, more materialistic side of himself, a foil to the more grounded person Tyler is usually.” He uses him extensively on his breakout track, “Yonkers.” He says angrily, “Fuck her, Wolf Haley robbin’ them/I’ll crash that fuckin’ airplane that that f***** nigga B.o.B is in/And stab Bruno Mars in his goddamn esophagus/And won’t stop until the cops come in.” No normal person would get away with saying this, but since he’s using an alter ego, it’s all fair game.

As hip-hop and the comic book landscape continue to grow as a genre and rake in more money with each passing year, the connections between the two art forms will continue to grow. Artists will continue rapping from different personas, teaming up with each other, and finding creative ways to emulate their favorite cape crusaders. And we, as the audience, will continue waiting patiently at the edge of our seats for every new release.