Canibus

Hip Hop was blessed back in 1974 with the birth of Germaine Williams (commonly known as Canibus). Nostradamus himself couldn’t have predicted the impact this man would have on the Hip Hop community. But before Canibus could “tear down mics and put an Out Of Order sign on em,” he had a long way to go.

His story begins in Jamaica, where he was born to Basil and Elaine Williams. The Williams’ marriage didn’t last, and when Basil (a cricket player) and Elaine split, Canibus stayed by his mother’s side. When Canibus was thirteen years old, he and mom dukes moved from Jamaica to the Bronx. It took a while for Bis to adapt to the Boogie-Down. He was a little Jamaican kid who liked to play soccer. He played for a boys club and even went to the championships a couple of times, but soccer wasn’t a popular sport in his school. All the kids were playing basketball or football, and Canibus never learned how to play. He soon picked up a couple of new hobbies though – beatboxing and breakdancing. He bought himself an Edison “ghetto-blaster” and practiced his moves. Breakdancing became a big part of his life as he began to idolize the members of the illustrious Rock Steady Crew.

Canibus had finally begun to find his niche in the Bronx. Unfortunately, as soon as he started to fit in a little, his mother informed him that they would be moving to Washington, DC. Bis would quickly learn what it meant to be the “new kid on the block,” and this would be a lesson that he would carry with him throughout his childhood. His mother worked for a housing project corporation, and at the end of every year her company would give a bonus to the employees that agreed to pick up and move to the next city of interest. With two sons to support, that bonus was much more important to Elaine than finding a permanent residence for her family. Her job brought Canibus and his younger brother up and down the east coast of the US. Canibus experienced being “the new kid” in DC, Miami, DC again, England (where his mother was originally from), Atlanta, and eventually New Jersey.

Moving around so much, Canibus never got the chance to make any real friends. He became a reclusive loner in every city he moved to. His time was divided among various hobbies – from playing video games to flying toy helicopters. He graduated high school in 1992 and went to work for AT&T for a year. After working with AT&T, Bis moved on to the US Department of Justice, where he worked as a data analyst in the Economic Litigation Division. This job required him to use a computer constantly, and he quickly discovered a new hobby – the Internet. Canibus, who was always a technology junkie, coveted the unconstrained vastness of the World Wide Web.

Cani’s love of computers and the Internet led him to study computer science at DeKalb Community College in Atlanta for three years. While at DeKalb, Canibus also got into the allied health field. He had always been interested in genetic engineering, and college gave him the chance to learn about radiology. He interned at an MRI center, examining war veterans.

Though Canibus dabbled with several jobs and interests, his main pursuit in life was rapping. During his days as a kid in the Bronx, Bis had evolved through various elements of Hip Hop. He started out breakdancing, and then got into beatboxing. That eventually led to him picking up a mic and learning how to tear it to shreds. By the time he landed in Atlanta, Cani had become an aggressive battle emcee with an interesting mixture of unmatched book-smarts and street-smarts. His boy Pat from DC hooked him up with this cat Webb, who was holdin down the ATL at the time. Webb and Canibus made a perfect combination, and in 1995 they started making moves in Atlanta as the duo T.H.E.M. (The Heralds of Extreme Metaphors).

T.H.E.M. is probably best known for their legendary battle against the Wu Tang Clan outside an Atlanta club. Canibus and Webb went toe to toe with the entire extended Wu family, until Killah Priest stepped up to the plate. Priest kicked a six-minute freestyle that left T.H.E.M., the Wu, and the 100+ spectators speechless. Nonetheless, respect was given all around. Canibus was starting to make friends in the industry. Around this time, a local Atlanta barber introduced Bis to a young entrepreneur named Charles Suitt. Though their relationship took some time to develop, it was a relationship that would later lead to big things for Canibus.

In 1996, after performing at the Gavin Convention, T.H.E.M. handed Suitt an eighteen-track demo, produced entirely by the duo. Suitt was very impressed with the demo, as well as with Canibus himself. As a new friendship was forming, however, an old one was starting to die out. Bis and Webb started beefing over God knows what, and T.H.E.M. quickly became a thing of the past. With his career in the limelight stunted, Canibus moved to the inside of the game. He helped Suitt start up Group Home Entertainment, the management company best known for representing the Queens-based group The Lost Boyz.

Though Canibus was hard at work with the Group Home family, he was still determined to achieve his goal of making it big as an artist. Bis started making moves on the underground circuit, blessing a mix tape here and there. In 1997, the Bay Area artist Ras Kass took a gamble on Canibus. Ras invited Bis to rhyme on a track with himself and Helta Skeltah that was slated to be on the Rhyme & Reason soundtrack. Ras caught a little heat from Priority Records, the label behind the project, but his faith in Bis proved well-founded. With Canibus spitting fire on the track, Uni-4-Orm was undeniably hot.

Soon after Uni-4-Orm, Canibus received another big break. His fam the Lost Boyz asked for his assistance on their second LP, “Love, Peace & Nappiness.” The album contained two verses from Bis – one in the song “My Crew,” and of course the eminent two minute and twenty second epic from “Beasts From The East.” This verse would go down in history as one of Cani’s most remarkable ever. Canibus collabos were now in full effect, and he was getting calls from some of Hip Hop’s top artists. He was about to get a phone call that would change his career and his life forever.

When LL Cool J invited Canibus to appear on his new single “4, 3, 2, 1,” Canibus couldn’t say no. After all, this was LL Cool J – a man who had been in the game for at least a decade, a living Hip Hop legend. When the two artists met, it was all love. Canibus, admiring the tattoo of a microphone on LL’s arm, asked if Mr. Smith would mind if Bis got a mic tatted on his arm. LL joked about it, saying that Canibus should only get a mic tattoo if he truly felt he was worthy. This conversation in mind, Canibus stepped into the booth to record his verse for the song. Bis included a few lines before he began to rip it, shouting out each of the other artists in the song. His line to LL included something along the lines of, “Yo LL. Is that a mic on your arm? Let me borrow that.” To this day, Canibus insists that the line was meant as a compliment. However, LL and his giant-sized ego took it as a diss. LL went in the booth and recorded an entire verse directed at Canibus. When Bis confronted him about his verse, LL said that he would change it as long as Canibus took the microphone line out of his. Done. Bis re-recorded his verse, thinking that LL was going to do the same. However, when the final “4, 3, 2, 1” was released, the LL verse remained intact. The situation might not have gone any further. Without Cani’s microphone line, it was possible that no one would be able to tell who LL was talking about. But like any other controversial production, the original “4, 3, 2, 1” leaked and the truth was exposed.
Now Canibus had no choice but to bring the heat. LL disrespected him, and as a man, Canibus was not gonna let that ride. He recorded indisputably one of the best battle raps in the history of Hip Hop – Second Round K.O. With a little help from Mike Tyson (who laced some background vocals to hype up the song), Bis ripped LL to pieces. This ignited one of the biggest Hip Hop feuds of the decade, involving Canibus, LL Cool J, Wyclef, and various other individuals who wanted in on the action.

How did Wyclef, of all people, get involved? Well let’s backtrack a little bit, to the opening night of Sean “Puffy” Combs’ new restaurant in Manhattan, Justin’s. On this night Canibus was introduced to Clef by Jay-Z. The two hit it off right away, and Canibus was soon down with Clef’s Navy Seals. Canibus toured with Wyclef while he began work on his debut album, Can-I-Bus.
Canibus had built up so much hype with Second Round K.O. All of America was awaiting his first full-length album. When Can-I-Bus finally dropped on Universal in September of 1998, it debuted at number two on the Billboard album chart. It sold over 127,000 copies in its first week and eventually brought a gold plaque home for Canibus. However, the critics had a field day with the album. The Source magazine called it one of the biggest “bricklayers” of 1998, saying that it “tanked horribly with poor beat choices.” It seemed that all the press had to say about Can-I-Bus was that the beats and production were terrible. Canibus hardly got the props he deserved for writing one of the most profound albums of the century. When Canibus said “Lyrically on a scale of 1 to 10, I’m 25” he wasn’t kidding. He brought the heat with a number of battle tracks, dropped some knowledge with various songs, and even schooled us on conspiracy theories. Cani’s delivery and voice sounded ill, and his lyrics and concepts were off the meter. However, the bad press seemed to shut Bis up for a while.

In between albums, Canibus was featured on various collaborations. He continued to outshine anybody that stepped into the studio with him. However, Canibus fans were denied the opportunity of hearing any solo joints from Bis. Near the end of the first quarter of 1999, a few bootlegged tracks began to slip out, and later that year the new single “2000 BC” appeared on a DJ Clue mix tape and it was official – Canibus would have a second album out sometime in the year 2000. The word from Cani’s mouth was that this time around things would be different. While making his first album, he didn’t really get involved with the production aspect. This time he was going to make sure he gave the public what they wanted – blazin battle raps over some hot beats. The album would be called “2000 BC,” 2000 for the year and BC meaning “Before Can-I-Bus.” Bis was taking it back to 1997, to the days of the raw lyrics, before the wack production on Can-I-Bus.

Die-hard Canibus fans began counting down the days until the release of 2000 BC. However, on the other side of things, those who were still unsure of Canibus weren’t anticipating the album at all. Universal, Cani’s label, wasn’t giving them anything to anticipate. The lack of promotion was obvious. Universal let Bis make one video, the video for “Mic-Nificent,” and it hardly aired at all. Canibus got little radio airplay. Commercials and posters were rare. While this lack of promotion hurt Cani’s record sales, the biggest blow had to come from the uncontrollable bootlegging of the album. Ideally, if a fan bootlegs an album, he or she would go cop the official when it drops in order to support the artist. But we can all guess what the majority did.

When 2000 BC finally dropped, there were mixed feelings about it. Yes, the production was tighter. But it still wasn’t as tight as many had hoped it would be. The other big letdown – it was an entire album of back to back battle raps. Yes, that is what Bis was known for and what he was best at. Truth be told, no one – I repeat, NO ONE – can spit like Bis can spit. But the album got a little monotonous due to the lack of concept songs.
With two LPs out, what would Cani’s next move be? Well 2000 BC introduced us to the next phase in his career. With the song “Horsementality,” Canibus launched the beginning of the elite Horsemen. The song featured Kurupt, Ras Kass, and Killah Priest along with Canibus. Later, rumors would emerge about various other artists becoming Horsemen – Pharoah Monche, Common, and Rakim to name a few. A Horsemen project was now in the works.

Meanwhile, Canibus dropped out of the public eye big time. He left Universal and submerged himself in the Web, amongst the underground Internet Hip Hop community. He traveled across seas where he was welcomed with open arms to do shows and interviews. While in the UK in January of 2001, Bis did a live session where he finally came back at LL hard (a few days later it was also performed in Amsterdam). This diss would later be turned into a track called “Rip The Jacker” (aka “I’m Bad”) and begin to circulate on the Net. Soon afterward, “Rip The Jacker” could be found at Cani’s mp3.com website, along with other new material. Also featured on the site was a big symbol for Gladiator Records, apparently Cani’s new label.

So now here we are, the end of summer 2001. What lies in the future for Canibus? Right now fans are anticipating a third album as well as the HRSMN project. Canibus has come a long way from that small town near Kingston, Jamaica. Hopefully he still has a long career ahead of him.