Fossil Fool, The Bike Rapper
Connecting with bike culture around the world.
Hear the New Rap Single, Boda Boda Rap, cut in Kenya in April 2006 with Luo rapper Lowie One. The Boda Boda Rap is dedicated to the Kenya's Boda Boda bicycle taxi operators, 10000 strong in Kisumu alone. Read up on Worldbike.org's Big Boda Project if you want to learn more.
Rolling with a wireless mic, ready to drop rhymes
Click the picture to see a 6-minute excerpt.
Buy the complete 20-minute video in the Fossil Fool store.
I'm not only the company president. I'm also the bike rapper. I go by the name of Fossil Fool.
A bike rapper is like a regular rapper, but instead of showing up in a car and rapping about cars, I show up on bike, and rap about bikes. My bike is a Soul Cycle, which means I bring my own amplification with me. When the moment is right, I reach behind me into one of the Soul Cycle's pockets, pull out a wireless microphone, and start flowing to the music. It takes me no time to set up, and no time to tear down.
Street performing with the Soul Cycle Mobile Audio System
Rapping with the Soul Cycle gives me the spontaneity to bring other rappers in. "I rock a wireless cause I'm tireless, can't hog no headset from the freestylists..." Click the picture to see the street performing magic (towards the end of this 5-minute video.)
Why rap about bikes? Well, I have my most creative moments when I'm out late at night rolling on my bike with the Down Low Glow. So naturally most of my good rhymes have something to do with bikes. Also, bikes are full of great, fertile material for rap lyrics. Tail skidding on beer cans, snaking through traffic, riding down stairs, bikes give you the freedom to express yourself in the urban environment, just like rap music.
Fossil Fool on MTV:
Fossil Fool appeared on September 21, 2005 on MTV's "The Reality Show", in support of the efforts of bike advocate and musician Kipchoge Spencer, to win a reality show.
Haven't you heard enough guys rapping about driving big cars, picking up women, bringing them home? And then, if you actually go out and try to live that life, you find out it's a fantasy. On Friday night, the streets are full of other cars trying to get places. You can't be spontaneous when you spent thirty minutes looking for a parking spot. So you stick around the bad parties, get stuck in traffic, come home without ever finding that transcendent moment you were searching for. If everybody rode bikes, America would be such a cool place to live. When I'm on my bike, the night flows, just like my lyrics flow. I rap about bikes to spread the message, but moreso, I do it because it's what I know and it's what I love.
So far I perform mostly at bike culture events in the Bay Area, as a street performer, and at parties. I've won 1st prize at the Berkeley Bicycle Film Festival for the last two years running, I performed at the San Francisco Bike Coalition's 2003 Winterfest Party, I was honored to be named a member of Xtracycle's Team FreeRadical (alongside Ani Difranco, Michael Franti, and Kipchoge and the Ginger Ninjas), and I took third place at a recent Berkeley Poetry Slam. If you have a Bay Area event that you think would be ideal for the Bike Rapper, please let me know!
Want Proof? Click the picture at the top of the page to see the Bike Rapper speak (in Real Player)! Or buy the complete 20-minute video in the Fossil Fool store.
