Dumile, who was eighteen years old when the video was made, wears a gas-station attendant’s uniform and a baseball cap cocked to the side.
Botha, and the mainstream rapper MC Hammer.
In the video, an assortment of hip-hop royalty gives “the gas face” (a maneuver that involves shaking your face in a slack-jawed manner, while moaning) to Adolf Hitler, the South African President P.
Performing under the name Zevlove X, he made his début in 1989 with a verse on a song called “The Gas Face,” the second single by the group 3rd Bass. This was the heyday of sampling-most rap was too small for lawsuits-and a hard-ass beat could come from anything: the opening piano riff from Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle,” the horns from Inspector Gadget’s theme song, a hook from “Schoolhouse Rock.”ĭumile was typical of that motley generation. to the mysticism of Rakim and the goofy musings of the Afros. In those days, you could tune in to “Yo! MTV Raps” and see everything from the gangsta stylings of N.W.A. Doom explains his mask as an effort to “control the story.” Illustration by Jaime Hernandez