Black Death. Say the name slow and let it sit. These dudes came together in 1977, so picture it. Disco running the airwaves, everybody out on the floor doing the hustle, and meanwhile down in the Rust Belt you got Greg Hicks, Phil Bullard, and Clayborn Pinkins building something loud and ugly and beautiful with no lane to even drive it in. No name yet. No singer for a stretch. Just three Black men making a racket nobody had given them permission to make. Sit with how bold that is. There was no roadmap. Nobody to copy off of. They were drawing the picture and inventing the colors at the same time.

Then Siki Spacek walked through the door, and the whole thing snapped into focus. Real name Reginald Gamble, but the man renamed himself like a comic villain and backed up every syllable. He turned into the voice, the writer, the lead riff machine, the engine that pulled the whole train. And here’s the part that gets me grinning every single time. The fellas he linked up with didn’t really know what they were getting into. Siki had to teach them. Sat them down with Scorpions songs first. Then he dragged the crew to a Judas Priest concert just so they could feel in their chest what he was already hearing in his head. You understand what kind of belief that takes? You’re chasing a sound nobody around you recognizes, and instead of folding, you school your own people until they can hand it back to you.

So now let me get to why I titled this thing the way I did. Ahead of their time. And I don’t mean by a year or two. I mean these brothers were operating in a future the rest of us hadn’t booked tickets for.

Think about the timeline real careful. When D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies and that whole crossover wave finally taught the hardcore kids how to bang their heads, when speed and punk officially shook hands and the magazines acted like somebody had split the atom, Cleveland’s finest had already been smashing those worlds together in sweaty little dive bars for years. The self-titled record didn’t even land until 1984 on Auburn Records, which is its own kind of perfect. But the songs on it were older than that. Road-tested. Beaten into shape on stage long before any tape rolled.

And what does that record actually sound like? It runs. It runs hard. You hear thrash before the word thrash was on everybody’s lips. You hear speed that’s about to trip over its own feet and somehow never does. You hear punk in the snot and the swagger and the way the whole thing refuses to be polite. The production is rough as a gravel road, no budget, no studio gloss, like the tape itself was a little scared of them. And honest to God that’s the magic. That dirt under the fingernails is the point.

Reach for a track called “The Scream of the Iron Messiah” and brace yourself, because that’s the four-piece at full sprint, riffs tumbling over each other with Siki’s voice clawing up out of his usual deep growl into something almost feral. Then you got “Streetwalker,” which is where the lyrics earn their keep. That ain’t dungeons and dragons fantasy fluff. That’s life on the corner, the grind, the hustle, the stuff Siki could see right outside the window. Long before a lot of these subgenres pretended to discover that you could put real street truth inside heavy music, this Ohio crew was already doing it without making a press release about it. “Night of the Living Death” and “Fear No Evil” round it out, and the whole platter holds together like one long fever.

Now I can’t tell this story honest and skip the heartbreak, because there’s a heavy one. Their first bass player, Clayborn Pinkins, got murdered in 1979. Shot dead. The man went to pick up his lady from a chicken spot over where Broadway meets Union, and that was it. Gone, right at the start, before he ever got to watch what they’d become. That kind of loss could have buried the whole project. Folks have quit over a whole lot less. Darrell Harris eventually slid in on bass and locked down the lineup you hear on the album, but you best believe that shadow followed the music.

And here’s a thing that knots my stomach a little. For all that vision, for all that fire, they never really busted out of their hometown. They opened for cats like Rick Derringer, Anvil, and Helix. Real rooms, real crowds. But the bigger stages, the major label money, the world tour, none of it came knocking. They watched other acts who looked a little more familiar, a little more expected, walk right past them and grab the deals. You want to talk about a tax that doesn’t show up on any receipt. Being first and being unfamiliar at the same time can cost a man everything but the satisfaction of having done it.

You’ll catch some debate about whether they were truly the very first all African American crew in the genre. Sound Barrier, another pioneering all-Black heavy metal band, released a full-length record, Total Control, in 1983, one year before Black Death’s 1984 album. Fair enough. But Black Death’s roots go back to 1977, and most heads who know the history still give these Cleveland boys the crown for arriving on the scene first. Siki himself never made the whole thing about color anyway. He’s got this great line about how being all dark skinned wasn’t some plan they cooked up in a back room. To him it was simply how the lineup turned out, and a coloring book stays a coloring book no matter what shades you fill it with. He just wanted to build the ultimate heavy band, the kind that could hit every emotion the way Hendrix and Sabbath and the rest hit theirs. Race was real, he knew the world made it real, but the mission was the music first.

They went quiet around 1988 and stayed mostly silent for two long decades. When the dust finally settled there was even a little family feud over the name, Siki running one camp and Greg another, the way these old stories always seem to fracture. Spacek’s version eventually rolled on as Black Death Resurrected. But the part that warms me is what happened to that lone old album. Hells Headbangers got it reissued, put it back in physical form, and all of a sudden a new generation started catching on. Decibel wrote it up. Kerrang gave it ink. Collectors started chasing the original pressing like buried treasure, because that’s exactly what it is.

So when I say they were ahead of their time, here’s what I really mean. The blend they were brewing in 1977, the way thrash and speed and punk attitude and honest social truth all got thrown in one pot, became the recipe a dozen famous outfits would later get rich and celebrated for. These dudes were the prototype. The proof of concept nobody acknowledged. They showed it could be done, and then the spotlight swung over their heads and landed on the folks who arrived after the door was already open.

And maybe the sweetest part, for somebody like me, is what their whole existence quietly says back to that uncle at the cookout. Brothers absolutely do rock. Brothers helped build the thing. Black men were in the engine room of heavy music from the jump, sweating and bleeding and inventing, whether the history books bothered to write it down or not.

Go put that record on. Crank it loud enough to annoy your neighbors. Then ask yourself how something this raw, this fearless, this far out in front, ever got left in the dark this long. Black Death earned their flowers a long, long time ago. The least we can do is finally hand them over.

Staff Writer; Bobby Jackson

This brother is dedicated to covering heavy metal and rock music with depth, respect, and cultural awareness. His writing highlights Black heavy metal and rock artists while also celebrating the genre’s broader legacy, influence, and artistic power.

Contact him at: BobbyJ@TheBRHM.com.

Decades later and I still get that same jolt. That’s the part nobody talks about enough. Most things you loved back in those teenage years end up sounding small once you grow up and your ears get older and pickier. These guys went the other direction on me. They got bigger.

Here’s my problem with a lot of what passes for hard music right now. It’s clean. Too clean. Everything’s been run through forty plugins until every rough edge got sanded smooth, every vocal tuned dead center, every drum hit lined up on a grid so tight a robot couldn’t argue with it. And the result is technically impressive and emotionally dead. You can build a perfect machine and still forget to give it a pulse. A whole lot of modern stuff sounds like it was made by people who were scared of being told they made a mistake.

AC/DC was never scared of mistakes. They built a fortune on mistakes that felt right. Listen close to those old cuts and you hear the room. You hear strings buzz. You hear Brian Johnson reaching for a note that’s living a little above his comfort zone, and instead of fixing it in some studio later, they just left the man up there sweating, because the sweat was the whole point.

Dangerous is a word I don’t throw around easy. I grew up around music that meant something, music my pops would nod his head to and music that scared the neighbors, both. So when I say these old heads still sound dangerous, I mean it. Put on Whole Lotta Rosie loud enough and your downstairs neighbor will start praying. There’s a swing in that rhythm section, Phil and Cliff back then, and the later lineups still chasing that same locked in thunder, and it feels like a fist swinging back and forth. It’s not fast. People always make the mistake of thinking heavy means fast. No. The Young brothers understood that the heaviest thing in the world is a groove that won’t quit, played by men who are in absolutely no hurry.

That patience is part of why it lives. Half these new bands play a riff once and then panic, stacking eight more parts on top because they don’t trust one good idea to hold the floor. The Australians would take a single dirty riff and ride it like they were daring you to get bored. You never did. You got hypnotized instead. That’s confidence you can’t fake with software.

And let’s talk about Angus for a second, because the man is a national treasure dressed like a schoolboy. People see the shorts and the duck walk and the tongue out and they think novelty act. Wrong. That’s a blues player at heart, somebody who clearly spent his youth wearing out records by guys who came up in juke joints and Chicago basements. You can trace the whole bloodline if you listen. The early Black guitar players bent notes until they cried, and somewhere across an ocean a skinny Scottish kid in Sydney heard that cry and decided to make it scream instead. That lineage matters to me. It reminds you that this whole loud thing we love came up from somewhere real, from pain and sweat and people who had something to say and a cheap amp to say it through.

The new stuff often forgets where it came from. It studied the surface and missed the soul. You can copy the distortion. You cannot copy the reason.

Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend these guys are saints or geniuses writing symphonies. Half their songs are about the same three subjects and you already know which ones. That’s fine. Better than fine. There’s an honesty in not pretending to be deeper than you are. They knew exactly what they were, a band built to make a sweaty crowd lose its mind on a Friday, and they did that one job better than almost anybody who ever plugged in. Knowing your purpose and nailing it dead on is its own kind of brilliance.

I caught them live years back and I’ll never forget the feeling when that giant bell came down and Brian started swinging. Grown men crying. Old white dudes, young brothers like me, kids who weren’t even born when Bon Scott was still alive, all of us screaming the same words back at the stage like a church that traded in hymns for high voltage. You don’t get that from polished. You get that from raw. From something that sounds like it might break or catch fire at any second. That edge of chaos is exactly what’s been bred out of the genre lately, and standing in that crowd I felt how badly we’ve been missing it.

Bon Scott dying and the band coming back with Brian and Back in Black instead of quitting tells you something about their spine, too. They lost their voice, literally, and answered grief by making the loudest, most alive thing of their entire run. That’s a working class response to tragedy if I ever heard one. You don’t fold. You go back to the job and you hit harder. I respect that more than any amount of studio trickery.

So why does it still have teeth in 2026 when so much else feels toothless. Because it was built true. No grid, no autotune crutch, no committee deciding what would test well. Just five guys, a few chords, and an absolute refusal to be tasteful. Taste is the enemy of this music. The minute you start worrying about being respectable you’ve already lost the thing that made it matter.

I love a lot of heavy bands. I’ve got thrash and doom and the new wave kids all in rotation, and I’ll defend the genre to anybody who calls it dumb. But when I need to remember why I fell for any of it, why a young brother sat frozen on his uncle’s floor, I go back to these grinning old maniacs in their schoolboy outfits. They remind me that the point was never to be smart. The point was to be alive, loud, and a little out of control, to make something that could still scare a quiet room.

That’s not nostalgia talking. Nostalgia is for things that died. These guys are still standing, still swinging that bell, still proving that the old way had something the new way keeps trying and failing to bottle. Turn it up. Let the neighbors worry. Some things were meant to be felt in the chest, not analyzed, and after all these years they’ve still got plenty left in the tank.

Staff Writer; Terry Poole

This brother brings sharp ears, deep respect, and real passion to every heavy metal riff, rock record, and overlooked gem he covers for TheBRHM… He writes for fans who still believe loud music should have soul, history, and meaning…

One may contact him at TerryP@TheBRHM.com.

It’s never been particularly difficult to mix in funk with rock or metal to get a good mix. Living Colour, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Faith No More all did this and produced legendary bangers. As far funk taking in elements of rock, it’s been done with the likes of War, Mandrill, Funkadelic, Prince, and Rick James. We’ll definitely get into Funkadelic because their sound mixed psychedelic rock and their brand of P-funk wonderfully.

Rick James and His Street Funk

However, Rick James—who had a rock edge to his funk since 1979’s Fire It Up—had been considered one the main names in early funk rock. One way to describe it that I really liked was “funk straight from the street”. That’s actually very accurate because even in metal now, having a sound that has a street-wise edge—especially in speed metal—tends to add some character to a Motorhead, Hellhammer, or early-Venom-inspired band.

While his tales of street life, sex, and sleaze predated the L. A metal likes of Motley Crue, Faster Pussycat, and W.A.S P, it was that extra rock bite that made that took his funk from the jam-like enclosures of Parliament and Bootsy Collins and actually saw him become a name in the early MTV age. His funk and later Prince’s were marketable to the mainstream. It wasn’t dated and was right at home alongside Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, and so on.

Street Songs was the approach of Fire It Up revisited and sharpened. Released in 1981, Rick James had dropped an album loaded with memorable bangers, MTV and radio-ready, and headed up with four very strong singles. The other eight tracks that weren’t singles were no slouches either!

He had found a formula that would work for this period and simply had to stick with it. Of course, those in funk or with funk roots regularly experiment and aim to evolve their sound to some degree. While we might hear some funk acts in a form they’ve been in for 10 to 20 years now, it took them years to get their sound to that point and decide “This is it, this is the sound.”

Plus, you have to hear a funk band live to really hear them go through different influences, sounds, and tempos. Yes, even on records funk can be wild and unchained but even those releases see the acts take the best, most cohesive tracks for a release meant to make a profit. Once they’re live, you get a mix of promo and the band in their natural environment.

Rick James was no different despite the decade. Even when he made a comeback with the momentum from his Chappelle’s Show appearances, there was still a fast and loose approach to his performances as he touched on the classic bangers that brought him to the dance. That approach is why the star of Street Songs, “Super Freak” has an amazing 7-minute version—which could’ve been longer, honestly.

Looking at it now, it would’ve been interesting to see how his sound would’ve evolved in the early 1980s with the rise of the glam metal bands—some of which had a very Rick James-approach to their lyrics and showmanship. Could he have gone in a faster, harder direction as many acts do with age and seniority in the industry or would he have kept his approach in full and become eclipsed by his contemporaries who surpassed him before the decade was out?

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

While a band might make the type of metal I’m interested in or want to explore, the lyrical content is often the clencher. That’s what usually sells me on checking their discography. So, I’d love to hear about what you—yes, the reader—like to hear from the band as far lyrics go but I’m going to share my top five.

And yes, I know some listeners only care about the technical side in regards to the strings, percussion, etc but I love storytelling and lean heavily towards vocal ability. Some singers work better with certain lyrical themes while others can do it all and have shown that. Anyway, let’s dive in!

Post-apocalyptic Themes in Metal

Now, the list is in no particular order but post-apocalyptic lyrics are my favorite lyrical theme. Hell, it’s my favorite theme in literature, gaming, and film. If you’ve checked out AfroGamers, you’ll know that Fallout is one of my favorite franchises. Violence and nuclear war are themes related to post-apoc.

The thing is: if it occurs after the collapse of civilization as we know it, I’m into it. In metal, I’ve found that thrash bands really corner the market on post-apoc. You can hear some straightforward heavy metal or power metal delve into post-apocalyptic lyrics but really, it’s the realm of thrash and Motorhead-inspired speed metal.

Recommended Bands: Children of Technology, Toxic Holocaust, Carnivore, Vindicator, Violator, Wastelander, Whipstriker

Epic Fantasy or Sword and Sorcery

On to my second favorite all-media theme: epic fantasy. In metal, it’s different from other media because it refers to your sword and sorcery family of fantasy. Your Conan, Kull, Elric, and Imaro stuff. Elsewhere, it’s high fantasy—the history of this fantasy realm, details about the different races, long drawn-out quests, and the social-political nature of those worlds. A lot of exposition and characters bumping their gums.

Sword and sorcery slashes all that to a tolerable level and focuses heavily on the main characters and their adventures. You learn about the world as the character interacts with it and that fits metal very well. The genres that tend to corner the market here are the epic metal and U.S power metal strains of power metal, speed metal, and heavy metal.

Recommended Bands: Manowar, Manowar, Skelator, 3 Inches of Blood, Omen, Crom

Fantasy

This is just the mentioned opposite of epic metal. It’s fantasy as it says on the tin with elves, magic, maybe an overarching quest or story—that kind of stuff. Just chock full of lore and whatnot. This is one lyrical theme that can fit many metal bands. It’s like tofu where anyone can work with it and make something worth listening to. However, I’m giving the nod to power metal and speed metal for cornering the market here.

Recommended Bands: Blind Guardian, Falconer, Helloween, Dragonforce, Don’t Drop the Sword, Cloven Altar, Abbath

Metal and Rock

Another genre any metal band could corner the market on and it fits in with most genres. Often including themes such as partying, thrashing, and headbanging, songs about metal and rock are pretty straightforward and go into the love for and culture of the genre. It also celebrates the history, the road lifestyle, and the community. Personally, I like this theme because of how straightforward it is and it will often give you the bouncier, rockin’ tracks on an album.

Recommended Bands: Judas Priest, Enforcer, Motorhead, Darkthrone, Rocka Rollas, Running Wild, Whipstriker, Em Ruinas, Fueled by Fire

War

“War…war never changes.”

While the quote is better known from Fallout nowadays, it was originally said by Ulysses S. Grant in relation to his feelings about utilizing war to achieve peace. In metal, themes of war tend to fit faster, more aggressive genres such as thrash, death metal, black metal, and speed metal but roughly any genre can dive into war whether it’s fantastical, futuristic, or historical. It’s a very versatile theme but can float among informing of the costs and causes of conflict or glorifying it.

Regardless, I tend to enjoy a track about historical battles, war with orcs or whatever, and futuristic wars.

Recommended Bands: Iron Maiden, Sabaron, Sodom, Kreator, Vindicator, Toxic Holocaust, Amon Amarth, Stormwarrior

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

That isn’t to say that the genre is done or died out. There are veterans touring from the aforementioned periods and a few younger acts who even keep up the sound of 1980s. So, what makes this strain of blues so interesting to me? 

The Sound 

I’m a history guy. I enjoy the history of whatever and will read issues or comics going back decades with a series or start a musician’s discography from the beginning. That’s something I’ve always felt was important. Whenever music fans get into a new artist, it’s not unusual to listen to that artist from the release they discovered the artist from and beyond. 

The stuff that brought to the dance—all of those demos, mixed tapes, and previous albums—might not get a listen from recent fans. So, I always dive into older albums and will end behind by two recent releases as was the case with one of my favorite metal bands Darkthrone. 

In the case of Southern Soul, I enjoy the stuff from the 1960s and early 1970s but the stuff from the late 1970s and the 1980s is my favorite. It also shows how in a subgenre, the sound can change distinctly within a decade. 

The 1960s-1970s stuff was very rooted in blues and gospel—almost to the point where it could be a larger regional subgenre, really. However, as the 1970s rolled on, music across the board built on different sounds and new genres were formed while older ones modernized. 

With the second act of southern soul, you had the roots of blues with more of an influence from soul, disco and R&B. It wasn’t exactly poppish but it did have more of a bounce and swagger or strut to it. Some artists like James Brown, Marvin Sease, Millie Jackson, and Peggy Scott Adams added energy and excitement to the sound and performances. 

That isn’t to say that these were present in the first wave or first act. Sonically, there were a lot of flavors there because there were a lot of genres that cropped up in that period. Funk, disco, go-go, P-Funk, psychedelic, rock, outlaw country,  metal, hip hop punk—those 1960s and 1970s decades were very busy for music. 

The Storytelling of Southern Soul 

As you may have gathered, I dig music with a quicker tempo and Southern soul can vary in tempo from energetic songs with a bounce to slower tunes. However, I’ve always loved storytelling in music and I also enjoy southern storytelling. 

I’m a Southerner, I love to hear my regional family tell a story with all of the humor and embellishment. You totally get that flavor in the storytelling and songwriting in southern soul just as you would in any blues derivative. It’s all in how the story is told and what the story is. It’s similar to enjoying different kinds of hip-hop by region, honestly. Sometimes the region can impact the lyrical content itself since the story is being told from the artist’s perspective and might include their experiences. 

In another entry, we’ll get into one of my favorite characters who embraces the sleazy, trickster approach to some of southern soul’s iconic tunes and themes—romance and salacious relationships. I’m talking about Marvin Sease and his persona of Mr. Jody. 

Now, there are many other artists in this genre who explored cheating, struggling to stay, being cheated on, and everything in that pot. Songs have been covered by contemporaries and peers. However, Marvin Sease’s storytelling really caught me. 

If you’re a fan of blues or southern soul, let us know your favorite period and some of your favorite artists! 

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

While I was more of a lapsed fan of roughly two or three years before I really got back into rock, I think my approach to delving back in could work for newcomers.

Hip-Hop Into Metal and Rock

I mention that period of hip-hop because it helped a ton when I was getting rediscovering rock and metal music. See, the Southern hip-hop of the late 90s and early 00s was very regional. In New Orleans you had bounce, Atlanta had a mixture but by the early 00s, it had taken Memphis crunk and made it more commercial. That sound, atmosphere, and the lyrical content became trap and snap.

The Southern hip-hop I grew up on had a variety of tempos but what I was attracted to was the more aggressive, rough sound of Memphis and Atlanta pre-snap. Again, that was a very small window since everything that could happen to a subgenre did from formation to fading out of popularity and inspiring new subgenres.

So, How Do You Find What Genre Is Best for You?

So, I liked the harder, faster stuff out of Southern hip-hop but the slower Houston sound got a couple of listens. When I entertained rock later on, I had a base of what I liked musically. I knew I didn’t enjoy romantic themes since they didn’t interest me and I could appreciate something slower or that encouraged dancing.

Again, I wasn’t seeking anything slow or toe-tapping, I was just checking out what was out there. However, the stuff that stuck with me had similar traits and tempos to what I listened to out of hip-hop. Obviously, the themes were different for the between crunk and something like thrash or speed metal but the approach of driving often dark melodies mixed with aggressive and sometimes anthemic content simply worked.

This was the mix that was going to work for me.

What you, as a new fan should figure out is what exactly do you enjoy to hear, read, or watch. Music is mostly storytelling. What kind of stories do you enjoy? As we’ve gone into here on The Black Rock & Heavy Metal, metal’s subgenres tend to give you some indication of what to expect lyrically and even sonically in the name alone.

“Heavy metal” and “hard rock” are both extremely vague, of course. You can hear songs about epic quests, battling goblins, and so on in either heavy metal or hard rock. Thrash metal explored politics and rebellion in the 80s with speed and anger in the sound—modern hard rock and nu metal did the same.

As odd as it might sound, making a list of what kind of stories you enjoy might help as well. However, if you know you like military history, finding a band that does music about that such as Sabaton, Saxon, or Rebellion is possible.

Check Out the Hits and Best-Known Songs First

Music enthusiasts of any genre tend to know the more introductory tunes of an act but can tell you what B-sides, basement cuts, or studio cuts are better than the EP stuff.

“Better can often mean the material that the fans will appreciate whether they really enjoy it or it’s not what they want. At least they can see why it’s on the album. It’s the material that they will recommend in addition to some of the singles that they really enjoyed.

You want to come to your own conclusion about if you enjoy a band or what you enjoy from the band. It’s worth mentioning that fans or enthusiasts of an act or a genre tend to really know their sh**. I can guarantee that 90-percent of the time, they’re going to tell you stuff that you didn’t ask about in regards to a band or genre.

Simply look at that as having more information or references to research. I learned a lot about different bands and subgenres faster by listening to and reading fans who have been listening longer. Hell, some were listening before I was born and were fans through the hot periods and the downfall.

They would know the peaks and valleys of a band’s material.

Easier and probably more explorative than that is to just find the hits from different bands and listen to them. The hits are the tunes meant to hook potential new fans in or at least get releases some listens and the videos some watches. In the case of music videos, it’s often the other way around.

On that note, sometimes music video can sell you on a song or even checking out more from a band. Judas Priest’s music videos and videos of their live performances did this for me.

Learn About Subgenres Before Diving Really Deep

I spent a lot of time researching the subgenres and it helps in getting to know what to expect from similar sounding bands or bands that are contemporaries. Now, there are fans who will you to ignore genres and labels and just listen to whatever. That it’s “all rock.”

Those are people who just want to see the world burn, never mind order or organization. While metal and hard rock’s lyrics can be about anything, the subgenres’ names give you an idea of what to expect for the most part either sonically or lyrically.

If you already know what you’re looking for or what you’re interested in, that can give you fewer misses when checking stuff out. Let’s be honest, sometimes you get a miss when checking out an album and it can be a waste of time. You just dedicated 45 minutes or an hour to an album and it was just mid for the most part.

You could’ve listened to something you might like or chill with something you’ve enjoyed before. Sure, you’re not exploring anything new if you do but you know it’s an enjoyable waste of time. Subgenres can kill the random risk of exploring metal and rock and it gives you more calculated risks.

So, learn those subgenres and learn the best examples of those bands. A good way to do this is explore some of the acts recommended on Apple Music or Spotify—the same as you would for any artists you do now.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

This was an album I saw in stores as a kid and thought it looked cool from the artwork. I used to draw a lot back then and stuff like comic book and album covers were an influence.

Mind you didn’t, I didn’t hear the album until a decade later. When I finally did listen to it, it was something entirely new. By that time I was listening to hip-hop but mainly stuff from the South.

It was 2005 and 1992’s Body Count was the first I’d heard any Ice-T project. This album piqued my interest and is the reason I enjoy Power and O.G. Original Gangsta now.

The Vision for Ice T and Body Count

Body Count made its debut on O.G. Original Gangsta. This likely contributed to the band being labeled rap rock tag. If it needed a new title, “street metal” or “hood metal” would’ve done it. Ice T doesn’t actually rap on the first album.

It’s more of a mix between singing and spoken word. Growing up, Ice T took in all kinds of music and had friends who played rock and also enjoyed metal. Ice T’s hip-hop career definitely allowed for exploration of different styles.

What Ice T and Ernie C wanted to achieve with the band was rock and metal with hip-hop energy and storytelling. As a long-time fan of rock and metal, I can agree with his view that the lyrics do tend to lean more towards fiction depending on the band.

I believe the intent was to merge rock and hip-hop together merging content that is usually addressed in politically aware hip-hop with the technical side of rock.

This mix should’ve been massive in rock and resulted in more artists from a hip-hop background or who grew up in the trappings discussed in hip-hop telling their stories in rock. Professionally, it brought Ice T into households and on radios that didn’t entertainment hip-hop.

What happened with this meeting of styles was more like bands taking the technical aspects of both and making of rap rock or rap metal. Stories—about a part of America that the mainstream usually ignored until something bad happened—were still being told.

However, for the most part they were more aggressive versions stories we’d heard for decades in same genre. They were just faster, louder, and often featured rapping.

Influences of A Pioneering Band

That brings us back to how the idea of Body Count came about. Ice T and Ernie C rocked with Black Sabbath as well as the thrash metal and hardcore punk bands of the decade prior. Crossover thrash was also an influence and was ultimately the direction the band ran.

In 1992, there were hip-hop artists and groups that made darker music while still staying firmly in the realm of reality. The goal was to use the dark sound of rock they enjoyed and address issues Ice-T did in his hip-hop career.

On paper, it was simple. Bring the dark mood of Black Sabbath, discuss real life social issues as they relate to the artists, and make it loud, fast, and intense. Body Count nailed that on the debut album.

The Debut Album

What I liked most about the debut album is the experimentation from Ice-T. A lot of songs feature shouted spoken word from the lead singer. Then you get a track like “The Winner Loses” which is a dark song about a crack abuser.

A song like this one and “Cop Killer” have warnings and messages amongst the guitars and drums. That’s another thing; the other members were on top of it. Guitarists Ernie C and D-Roc the Executioner, Mooseman on bass, and drummer Beatmaster V all brought it on the debut.

When listening to rock for a while, it can become easy to overlook other members of a band unless they do an exceptional job. It’s also hard when you’re like me and put a greater emphasis on singing performance and lyrics.

The entire album is dark but not dark to the point of being bleak. It’s a mix of metal and hardcore punk on the sound side and the album structure from hip-hop with interludes being used regularly.

You know, the skit track that you might skip over on an album. Some of them are placed really well and sets up the next song. Allof the interludes were placed for a specific effect on the listener.

However, the overall flow could be impacted at times. You had some interludes that result in a tone shift between songs as was the case in listening to “KKK B****” then getting into “Voodoo” which is a horror-themed song about a run in with voodoo.

I definitely recommend this first album if you’ve wanted to hear Ice-T in a different but familiar environment. It’s also always good when an artist has love for a genre that isn’t what they’re known for, pursues a project, and have it end up successful.

Here’s hoping Denzel Curry takes note and pursue rock as well.

Staff Writer; James Swift, Jr.

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.