Rammellzee was a visual artist, gothic futurist graffiti writer, painter, performance artist, art theoretician, sculptor and a hip-hop musician from New York City, who has been cited as "instrumental in introducing elements of the avant-garde into hip-hop culture".
21 Facts About Rammellzee
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Rammellzee was born on December 15,1960, in Far Rockaway, Queens to an African-American mother and Italian father who worked as a transit detective.
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Rammellzee studied dentistry at the Clara Barton High School for Health Professions, was a model for Wilhelmina, and briefly studied jewelry design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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Rammellzee was an occasional member of the Death Comet Crew, with Stuart Argabright, Michael Diekmann and Shinichi Shimokawa.
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Rammellzee formed the crew Tag Master Killers, consisting of A-One, Delta2, Kool Koor and Toxic.
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Rammellzee became a friend and collaborator of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
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Rammellzee was an original hip hop artist who introduced specific vocal styles which date back to the early 1980s.
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Rammellzee makes a cameo appearance near the end of Jim Jarmusch's 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise.
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In 2003, Rammellzee released his debut album, This Is What You Made Me, and performed at the Knitting Factory in New York with the newly reformed Death Comet Crew.
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In 2004, Rammellzee released his second album Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee, produced by Gamma Records.
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In 2009 Rammellzee exhibited what was to be his final work, Atomic Note Maestro Atmosferic, at an exhibition housed in the Grand Palais in Paris.
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In 2018, Rammellzee was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at Red Bull Arts in New York City head-curated by Maxwell Wolf.
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The Rammellzee estate is represented by the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery.
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Rammellzee performed in self-designed masks and costumes of different characters which represented the "mathematical equation" that is Rammellzee.
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Rammellzee's work is considered to contribute to the canon of Afrofuturism, primarily through his repeated use of language as a technology.
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Conversely, Rammellzee had stated that "there is no such thing as Afro Futurism" and considered his work to be more part of a larger European monastic tradition than any part of an Afrofuturist tradition.
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Rammellzee is celebrated in Big Audio Dynamite's song, 'C'mon Every Beatbox'.
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Rammellzee died in New York City on June 28,2010, at the age of 49.
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Rammellzee had liver problems, and health issues caused or exacerbated by exposure to glue, paint fumes, resin and other toxins used in his works.
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Rammellzee legally changed his name to Rammellzee in 1979 and friends who knew his birth name were unwilling to reveal it, in accordance with his wishes.
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Rammellzee has credited Jamel-Z, a mentor from the Nation of Gods and Earths he met in 1977, with inspiration for his name.