Keep It Beautiful: Inside the Funkyverse of Shock G and Digital Underground

Alexis Wolfe Mbassa is a NYC-based music and portrait photographer with more than twenty years experience in the industry documenting hip-hop artists, bands, and individuals, including Digital Underground, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and Crodac Vodka (with Flavor Flav). Her first book, Emerald City Hip Hop, published in 2008 and included a foreword by Shock G. Alexis is known for fully immersing herself into the moment and capturing very real and intimate images of her subjects.

Topanga Canyon, California
Greg Jacobs’s Home
August 10, 2011

I first met Shock G at a digital underground show in the fall of 2001 at the Catwalk in Seattle. I was a college student—just beginning to form my career in photography. I was there to photograph some of the local headliners on that crisp late-autumn night. I pushed past the velvety curtains to backstage, toting my media essentials and camera gear, and nodded to the usual suspects. Before I found a place to hole up and organize, my eyes were drawn to a mysterious figure sitting by the corner, writing quietly. I assumed he was a spoken word artist, a bit shy and deep in his thoughts. Everyone else was drinking, loud and bumping into each other with that before-show energy. The room was filled with members of digital underground (Money B, Too Fly Eli, Esinchill Campbell, Nu-Stylez, Metaphysical) as well as local hip hop artists I knew and their mini entourages. Even a couple of moms were in the group all mingled together. It felt like a family reunion of sorts.

A long, dark, heavy wooden table stretched through the center of the dimly lit room, etched with evidence of concerts past and its beautifully rough and unrefined history. Along one side of the room was a bar, where that lone figure sat, leaning up against the corner wall. I went over to talk to him because he looked so peaceful amid all the activity. I was more curious than anything. As I approached, he welcomed the company and we began to chat about art and the importance of color choice. I hadn’t realized who he was. Then I looked down to see that he was not writing at all, but in fact shading Humpty’s nose with a Sharpie. This was Shock G!

When he got up to join the group, he looked taller than I had imagined and had a larger-than-life presence. He was smooth yet had a hard look to him at the same time. He playfully tousled my hair as if I were his baby sister, bummed a cigarette from someone, and started entertaining the group with a Humpty voice and a Tupac story. I could see that Shock was a true entertainer. After the show he came out with a group of us . . . me and some of the local hip hop artists who opened for him that night: Kas, Sonny Bonoho, Rebel. Everything closed at about 1 in the morning, and it was already past that time, so we drove around into the still Seattle night, following each other in cars and stopping in parking lots to figure out the best spot to go next. There was a sense of excitement in the air and conversations about somebody’s new project or cover art. Everyone was feeding off Shock’s presence, and I could see they felt potential in their own artistry more than ever.

I was right there with them. He exuded a natural creative energy that was energizing and contagious. It made everything we were working for seem within reach. Shock was genuinely curious about the art we were putting out. He wanted to hear more of the music and learn more about our projects. I showed him a mock-up of a book I was working on. He looked through it and agreed right then and there to write the foreword for it. He bumped us all up by showing he believed in us. We all talked until the early morning hours, first at Kas’s house in South Seattle, then we all piled into Shock’s hotel room. He left Seattle with armfuls of demo CDs, phone numbers, and a draft of my book. I left with a Humpty jacket and a new trusted friend.

Ten years later, I find myself sitting in my rental car on my way to Greg’s home just outside L.A., ready to start work on his book. I always feel a sense of excitement driving out of LAX. It’s almost like the feeling I get back home in New York, like there’s an energy here, things are happening, people are making moves—only in L.A. it’s not as grimy. The rental agency gave me an upgrade on my car this time, so I feel extra baller-ish in my silver Cadillac with the windows all the way down, music loud, seat back, and that warm California breeze coming through. As I pull off the Pacific Coast Highway onto the winding, deep-orange, death-wish road to Topanga Canyon, I am reminded of why Shock chose this place, reminded of him saying what mattered to him was to feel connected to the universe, to nature. He’d say things like, “It’s just me and the crickets out here. I can dance naked with the curtains open.” I give Greg a quick call to tell him I’m on the way. “Hey Lex! Your flight good?” he says. “I’m gonna make you something to eat when you get here.”

I didn’t get to fully know Greg right away; that took some time. I met two of his well-known alter egos first: Shock G and Humpty Hump. Greg is much more complicated than those two. I see his alter egos as real separate people. At times it seems like he becomes more Shock G, Humpty Hump, Rackadelic, the Piano Man, Peanut Hakeem, or Icey-Michael Boston. Mostly, now, I see him as either Shock or Greg. Sometimes he’s “regular dude,” practical joker, and deep thinker Greg; other times he’s bigger-than-life smooth pimp and superstar Shock G.

Rackadelic or the Piano Man will show up when he’s contemplating art, music, and in his creative mind. I try not to work with Humpty. Humpty is too loud and showy and obnoxious.

As I turn onto the long, steep, dusty driveway leading up to his place, I pull this big shiny lug of a car into some sort of a spot, resting on the edge of a drop-off. I suddenly realize that it will be near-impossible to ever get out. A couple years ago, I brought my teeny grandmother here, to meet Shock and look at the sunset from his balcony. She was so terrified we might roll down the cliffside that she yelled at me, “Do you know how many sunsets I’ve seen in my life?!” Greg walked up to us and immediately charmed her. The two of them sang old songs together that day and kept in touch with handwritten notes for years to come.

Whenever I work with Greg, I too find myself in my grandmother’s shoes, letting go of things that normally freak me out. Like my car, here, perched on a cliff. Greg lives in a different dimension. “He thinks in cartoons,” as Saafir would say. It’s easier to go with it than try to fight it with too much thought. So I think, Whatever, I’ll figure it out. I lean in to grab my bag from the passenger seat and look out into Topanga Canyon. I can just make out the City of Angels in the distance. I breathe in the fresh air and hear, “Lex! Come check this out!” He is standing at the top of a large red boulder just west of his front door. This is so like Shock. Who knows what he is about to show me. But I’m ready.