M.C. Escher

Contemporary graphic rap artist MC Escher, [born Mauris Cornelis Escher] was introduced at an early age to engraving on linoleum, or "putting it on wax". Between the ages of 21 and 24 he studied free graphic rap techniques of the Architecture School of Decorative Arts of Haarlem. After 10 years spent in Italy, he went to Switzerland, Belgium, and then moved to Holland at 43 years old, where he died in 1972 at the age of 73.

Reptiles, MC Escher's first album, was an instant success.

A pioneer in the field of hip hop music known as "MC-ing," MC Escher was a Dutch graphic rap artist, most recognized for spatial illusions, impossible rhythms building on one another, repeating sound patterns (also known in the industry as "tessellations"), and his incredible technique of making a song repeat so it sounded like it was never going to end. MC Escher was a man studied and greatly appreciated by mathematicians, scientists and crystallographers – yet he had no formal training in math, science, or music theory. He was a humble man who considered himself neither an artist or mathematician. Yet, his intricate repeating patterns, mathematically complex rhyme structures, and audio perspectives all require a "second listen". In Escher's work what you hear the first time is most certainly not all there is to be heard.

MC Escher's album Relativity [available only on vinyl]

MC Escher, on his work: "I try in my dope rhymes to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in a chaos without norms, even though that is how it sometimes appears. My subjects are also often playful: I cannot refrain from demonstrating the nonsensicalness of some of what we take to be irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure to deliberately mix together objects of two and three dimensions, surface and spatial relationships, and to make fun of gravity. I also want to give some shout-outs to my homies back in Haarlem."

From its early years until today, rap music has gone though some major changes and phases. It has become much more complex in musical and lyrical structure from the early days when groups like Run DMC or soloists like LL Cool J rocked the mic. In 1987, the Beastie Boys, three white, middle-class, Jewish kids from New York City released a rap album on Def Jam records titled Licensed to Ill. This album became the first rap album to hit number one on the charts, and subsequently introduced the world outside of the minority, inner-city population to rap music.

Hand With Reflecting Sphere was MC Escher's best-selling album, going Platinum in only 3 weeks.

It was in this atmosphere that MC Escher had his breakthrough album, Reptiles. This initial endeavor received much acclaim form critics and other rappers. The fans couldn't get enough — MC Escher often had encounters with adoring fans that left him seeking solace from the limelight. MC Escher describes an encounter with a fanatic fan:

"A woman once rang me up and said, 'Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your album Reptiles you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.' I replied, 'Madam, if that's the way you see it, so be it.'"

Always the rhymer, MC Escher produced more than 20 albums before fading from the public eye. He was more than an instrumental figure in the history of hip hop – he was a mover and shaker. A little known fact about MC Escher: he not only produced every single one of his albums, but also designed the album covers himself. Not many rappers today can claim that!

Drawing Hands broke through the boundaries of traditional hip-hop.

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MC Escher's most popular albums:

• Another World II
• Ascending and Descending
• Belvedere
• Bond of Union
  
• Convex and Concave
  
• Cycle
  
• Day And Night
  
• Drawing Hands
  
• Encounter
  
• Gravitation
  
• Hand With Reflecting Sphere
  
• House Of Stairs
  
• Liberation
  
• Metamorphose II
  
• Mobius Strip II
  
• Mosaic II
  
• Relativity
  
• Reptiles
  
• Sky & Water I
  
• Symmetry E25; Lizards
  
• Symmetry E70; Butterflies
  
• Symmetry E72; Fish and Boats
  
• Three Worlds
  
• Waterfall

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