Since the 1980s, when Gangsta rap first emerged in Los Angeles, hip-hop has been characterised as a highly aggressive, anti-social and hostile genre. Although there have been socially conscious artists and progressive artists such as Common and Lauryn Hill, other MCs such as Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Eminem have embraced slightly unhinged personas that, from the outside, often seem scary.
However, some acts, for various reasons, do end up suffering from mental health issues and, on some occasions, do act out violently as a result of this. On some occasions, it even results in MCs becoming suicidal.
At the turn of the millennium, a new group was emerging from the West Coast named Black Knights Of The North Star, which was a merger of the collective Black Knights and the duo Northstar.
The latter was comprised of Christ Bearer and the late Meko The Pharaoh and, in the early 2000s, were signed to RZA’s label Wu-Tang Records. In 2003, they released their debut album, Bobby Digital Presents Northstar. However, the group did not become relevant in any meaningful way.
Northstar faded into obscurity after the 2000s. However, one of its artists, Christ Bearer (real name Andre Johnson), re-entered the news in 2014 when it was reported that during a suicide attempt whilst standing on top of an apartment building, the West Coast emcee severed his genitals.
It later came to light that the emcee was on Angel Dust (PCP) when he committed the act and was driven to suicide due to a restraining order that had been placed, which prevented him from seeing his children. Although he didn’t jump off the building, shortly after the attempt, he was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, where doctors reattached his penis.
In an interview on the Vice TV series Pharmacopeia, which explores the dark side of psychoactive drugs, Johnson explained, “PCP is something that can alter reality. It’s like knowledge. You can see something, and once you see that, you can’t ever go back. That night, I had some PCP. I was watching cartoons. And, to me, for some reason, life turned into a cartoon. And I had three baby mothers, and they all had restraining orders on me so I couldn’t see my kids.”
He continued, “It started being like society that was just dragging me down into a vortex that I could not stop. Women say ‘Men think with their little head too much. They’re always thinking with their little heads.’ So I said, ‘You know what? I got something for these bitches. I’m going to cut off my little head, and I’ll be forced to only think with my big head.'”
A similar incident to Johnson’s occurred in 2005 when, after taking Angel Dust, R’n’B singer Houston, in a suicide attempt, gouged out his eye with a fork while in a London hotel.
