Well, as the man himself would've surely said, ain't that a bitttttch? Rudy Ray Moore — aka "Dolemite," the godfather of rap, blaxploitation film auteur, and perpetrator of about 30 of the most gleefully foul-mouthed "party" records you'd ever want to hear — passed away last week at the tender age of 81. Mr. Moore may not have possessed the most happenin' 'fro in the world (it generally looked pretty nappy whenever it bloomed beyond the basic circumference of his head), but his contribution to African American culture was surely 'fro-tastic in the extreme.
Moore was born in Arkansas in 1927, and he never really lost that "just off the hay wagon" vibe, even when he was sporting his finest pimp vines at the peak of his stardom. An older black gentleman I once met at a party lovingly described Moore as "a stone country n*gger"; and on the surface, at least, there was little about Moore's excessive braggadocio — the length and girth of his dick wasn't just a boast in his standup routines, it was a veritable plot point — that you could ever describe as sophisticated. And yet, the rhymes and tall tales that Rudy laid down (both in form and content) actually dated back hundreds of years to the slave-era south, and to Africa before that; so in his own twisted way, Moore was something of a walking, talking cultural artifact.
His no-budget films — Dolemite, The Human Tornado, Petey Wheatstraw — The Devil's Son-in-Law, Avenging Disco Godfather — were a whole 'nother thang altogether. My friend Tracy, who had the pleasure of working with Rudy in his later years, has compared him to Ed Wood, Jr., which is pretty spot-on, except that I'd throw in some John Waters and James Brown, as well. Sure, you could see the microphones in the shots half the time, but Rudy had a finely honed sense of ridiculousness and a deep appreciation for oddball characters (dig "the creeper," aka "hamburger pimp" from Dolemite, the junkie who could barely shuffle across the street yet boasted that he was "so bad, I kick my own ass twice a day"), and exuded a natural comic charisma that made many other blaxploitation stars of the day seem like cardboard cutouts by comparison. I mean, anyone with the balls to call a late-70s album Close Encounters of the Sex Kind has to be some sort of genius in the first place, but these flicks confirmed it — in my warped mind, at least.
In final tribute to the man, I'll just treat you to the original trailer from 1975's Dolemite. Not remotely safe for work — but you simply wouldn't want it any other way. R.I.P., Rudy.
He was (is) the king and I shall forever sing his praises for nothing short of the fact that he provided me with an identity!
"I GOT UP THIS MORNING FEELING MIGHTY SWELL, I FUCKED 98 BITCHES FORE' MY OLD DICK FELL
THEN I WENT TO THE RESTAURANT, GOT ME A BOWL OF KRAUT
THEN I FUCKED 2 MO' TO MAKE THAT GODDAMN HUNDRED OUT!"
REST IN PEACE RUDY
Posted by: Eric Colin | October 23, 2008 at 08:38 AM