why so serious, Eminem?

Uh oh, Eminem's been possessed by the Joker...

Think about his nickname "Slim Shady" - it's just an alter ego he used in order to clown around and say all kinds of controversial stuff. Its purpose was to protect him as a person. He would always say it was just a character and that he really didn't believe the things Slim Shady said. Pretty clever!

Tupac and Snoop Dogg

Alright, so Tupac Shakur wanted to change his professional name to Makaveli in 1996.  It was a reference to Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian philsopher/writer.  Fun fact: The Black Panthers based some of their ideas on his writing, that's where their "by any means necessary" motto comes from.  That's probably why Tupac came up with the new name.  Anyway, I thought it would be cool to try and mix the two together - ol' 2pac looking like a guy from the Renaissance period.  Oh yeah, and Snoop Dogg over there was definitely a no-brainer, heh heh

KRS-One: The Blastmaster

 

Here comes another one, KRS-One!  The guy has the nickname of "The Blastmaster" because of the way he would win rap battles.  When I first heard the nickname, Ironman instantly popped into my head.  Yeah, THAT guy fits the description pretty well.  So, lo and behold, Krs-One in an Ironman-esque super suit!

Rakim: The Microphone Fiend

A couple of months ago I was reading about all of these rappers with clever nicknames, and I came up with a new idea.  I thought it'd be entertaining to draw some of these guys and kind of mix their respective nicknames into their character in a literal sense.  This is the first one - Rakim.  He always loved to call himself the "Microphone Fiend".  He probably wasn't prepared for this, however.  I turned him into a REAL demon/fiend, yet I still let him keep his rapper look a little bit.  I've done this with 2 other rappers and I'll get them posted soon. At the moment I'm actually working an Eminem one.  Stay tuned, everyone...