Brotha Lynch Hung (real name: Kevin Mann, 1969-), a Sacramento-based Horrorcore pioneer, goes far beyond normal Gangsta Rap tropes. He raps about eating babies, cannibalism and serial killers. He laces his raps with themes that are intermediately gritty, street-level and realistic, and over-the-top cartoonish, fucked-up and grotesque.
BLH is signed to TechN9ne's Strange Music label, but his career is much longer than that. His career began in 1986, and he released his Cult Classic Season of the Siccness, in 1992. He got some Hip-Hop clout via association with Master P, who featured Lynch on the soundtrack to the No Limit movie I'm Bout It.
In 2000, BLH made a comedy horror movie called Now Eat, which received mixed responses from fans and generally negative reviews elsewhere. Most reviews criticized it for its low budget and poor production values, while fans saw it as either having So Bad, It's Good entertainment value or being disappointing, in contrast to the detailed, nuanced storytelling for which his raps are known.
Tropes
- Ax-Crazy, Karma Houdini, Serial Killer, The Sociopath and Villain Protagonist: These are some of the interpretations that Brotha Lynch Hung takes himself in each song.
- Black Comedy / Dead Baby Comedy: His occasional sense of humor in his songs comes sometimes to be macabre.
- Eats Babies: One of his most popular songs is "Return of da Baby Killa
". - Gangsta Rap: Lynch takes this style to extremes, especially in his first days.
- Gorn: Repeatedly.
- Horrorcore
- Horror Hunger: Occurs in his movie Now Eat, in which a witch places a curse on Lynch. This curse forces him to eat everything he kills, causing him to turn into a "humanitarian" because of his multiple gang slayings.
- I Am a Humanitarian: A recurring theme.
- Lighter and Softer: More specifically on the album "The New Season" with MC Eiht. However, he returned to the Darker and Edgier status with the release of the album "Snuff Tapes".
- Working Out Their Emotions: In a departure from his usual standard, "Meat" deals with Lynch's personal demons and the struggles he's had to go through in life, framed as dialogue between a father and his son. Everything from his former life as a gang member to his issues with his former label and his money troubles up to that point are addressed, and you can tell from Lynch's understated delivery that the man is revisiting a lot of pain with what he's rapping.
