There was no longevity about The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, but the output from the duo of Michael Franti and Rono Tse has proved to be enduring and essential.
Frani and Tse had both been members of industrial hip hop band The Beatnigs, whose one album on Alternative Tentacles had been released in 1988. It was two years after this that DHoH came into being, and their debut single was (What Do I Do To Become) Famous and Dandy, a song which explores the history of black entertainers in modern American popular culture, especially on television.
It was that very medium which was the subject of their next single, and probably their best known-number, Television, the Drug of the Nation, a re-working of a Beatnigs song. This was my first exposure to the band, and the way them seemed to fuse the rap of Public Enemy and the beat poetry of Gil Scott-Heron was something I found incredibly exciting. The debut album, Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury was bought the week it was released in March 1992, and I looked forward to them taking the world by storm.
It didn’t happen, although they were given excellent exposure to wider audiences thanks to them opening up on tours for the likes of U2, Nirvana and Rage Against The Machine.
A third single, Language Of Violence was lifted from the album.
The tale of an horrific homophobic murder, with a twist at the end for one of the perpetrators. It was never going to be played on the radio, but the group and the record label, 4th and Broadway, (a subsidiary of Island Records), were determined to push this particular message. It was issued on 12″ CD and cassette, with the vinyl also containing a 12-page comic in which the story of the song, via the lyric, is laid out.
There were three tracks on the 12″:-
mp3: The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Language of Violence
mp3: The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Famous And Dandy (Like Amos ‘N’ Andy) (Instrumental)
mp3: The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Theme From ‘Water Pistol Man’
It’s the full-length album version of the lead track, coming in at more than six minutes in length. The middle track was an instrumental take of a later re-working of the debut single, while the final track is another instrumental, a slightly edited version of the song which closes the album. Both instrumentals give a great indication of how musically talented the duo were as performers and arrangers.
Until this article I was aware of the band name but would’ve sworn I knew no songs. I not only know at least one song – I really like it.
Flimflamfan