Slick Rick: The Ruler and Deportation

Ricky Walters Emcee Ricky D Slick Rick the Ruler has lived in the States since roughly the age of 11. His parents, who were both born in Jamaica, moved to England for work and had their son in 1965. During the middle of the following decade moved the whole family to New Yawk.

The city at that time was not only in tremendous financial straights, fighting a crime epidemic and a burgeoning wash of drugs, but was also busy birthing a few disparate music genres. Punk rock, which had as much to do with the dirty bowery as hip hop had to do with the Bronx, came out of this specific time. And in this fact can be found the impetus for Slick Rick’s storytelling abilities – or at least his proclivity to use narratives in his raps as opposed to simply boasting about this or that, although that was certainly included as well.

First making a name for himself along side Doug E. Fresh as a member of the Get Fresh Crew, Slick Rick would record The Adventures of… just two years after being a part of “The Show,” which is now an avowed hip hop classic.

Slick Rick’s first long player, released via Russell Simon’s Def Jam, was a defining moment in rap recordings. While Boogie Down Productions, a group that included KRS One, always worked to tell tales of violence, but couched it all in a sort of social message, Slick Rick eschewed overt messages and relied on stories to speak for themselves. And when “Children’s Story” functioned simply as a bed time tale for Rick’s niece and nephew, the song winds up explaining how kids can get carried away and wind up in situations that can’t be readily fixed.

A bit further on during Slick Rick’s first long player “Indian Girl (An Adult Story)” crops up. With the ridiculous premise of Davey Crocket meeting an attractive native girl, being invited to dinner and having his way her even as she cries out, “No,” the song concludes in a surprising fashion. Crocket gets crabs from his conquest. So while there’s not an overt discussion of sexual violence and disease, Rick is able to at least pass on the basic concepts of both.

Rightly considered a classic at this point, The Adventures of… even finds the emcee getting behind the boards producing a quarter of the tracks himself and being assisted on the rest of the album. It’s an early testament to insular album creations. And even if Slick Rick wouldn’t again record an album that captured listeners in the same way, this disc was able to garner the emcee a strong fan base up to the present.

The reason, though, for Rick’s problematic recording career isn’t something that he even necessarily had a hand in. After a few run ins with the law, seeing as he never became a US citizen, there were a series of attempts to send Rick back to England. Each different attempt failed, but resulted in the emcee spending well over a year in prison. And that’s bunk.