I stopped by Red Hot Robot on my way home from work Wednesday evening. Though the store didn’t have the Legends of Rap trading cards, the owner turned me on to the Gangsta Rap Coloring Book by artist Aye Jay of San Francisco.
With a foreword by J-Zone and afterword by Sacha Jenkins, the book features 48 pages of drawings of rap artists that you can color. Cypress Hill, Mobb Deep, Ice Cube, you name it. Apparently, the book has caused a bit of controversy as well.
But District Attorney Lynne Abraham calls the book a disgrace. “With all the terrible things happening, shootings, gang warfare, Mac 10’s, Tec-9’s and here is this company that is supposed to be a responsible company that’s totally unresposible, so I’m disgusted, I’m horrified.”
Well, I hate to tell District Attorney Lynne Abraham, but I think this is a great intersection of art, irony and music. Though I gotta say, I’m kinda nervous to even put a crayon to the book, even though Aye Jay has kindly left the last portrait blank for you: “Draw your own gangsta rap superstar here.”
If I were to color the pages, I’d probably have to start with the rendering of KRS-One from the cover of Boogie Down Productions’ By Any Means Necessary.
Red Hot has some pretty cool big kid toys, I didn’t know about this book, so now I gotsta roll up and drop some cash to get my color on.