Slap Shots

"He'd probably weasel his way in there somewhere," laughs the Crack Emcee. "My point is that Farrakhan would have to be sitting there to keep somebody like Carl T. Rowan in line. Carl Rowan would try to compromise, keep on wheeling and dealing until you have nothing, whereas Farrakhan, he'll always be there asking for more than anybody could ever expect to get."

We talk about the similarity between Pat Buchanan and Farrakhan, the fever that both men instill in their camps.

"Two groups that definitely want their own land!" he laughs. "I don't think it's such a bad idea. We'll do the Florida/Washington state thing!"

The idea of a country, lily white in one corner, jet black in another, is a crazy notion, particularly when you consider driving the route in a car.

Crack Emcee gets serious again: "Something ought to happen. Everybody acknowledges that racism is here. We had the [South Central] riots, and everybody's like, 'Oh, yeah, we gotta talk about race, it's so important, we're gonna do all this stuff.' Never happened. Since we've had the Million Man March, the O.J. thing, these black people that cut that woman's baby out of her stomach -- it seems like we travel from one explosion to another, to define who we are. There's another one on its way, I can feel it in my bones."

Crack Emcee has been slapping in a variety of tapes, including his band-in-progress called Ghettoblaster. He now puts on a beat-up record of West Side Story, replay-ing Leonard Bernstein's abrupt time and rhythm changes, hollering, "This is knucklehead music!" It is. Crack Emcee is. They both are.

Nobody refers to rapper personas like Chuck D as Carlton Ridenour, so Crack Emcee is naturally surprised a recent production of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre listed his sound design credit as "L. Troy Dixon, a.k.a. The Crack Emcee."

He mulls over the mundane sound of his real name: "L. Troy Dixon ... I'm sitting here thinking, 'God, the wife is gonna be mad at me 'cause I didn't fix that cabinet.' "

By Jack Boulware