Philadelphia has a rich, oft-overlooked history in hip-hop. Cool C, Three Times Dope, Schoolly D, DJ Cash Money, and, of course, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince laid the foundation in the '80s. By the time Bryant was a student at Lower Merion High School in the mid-'90s, Philly's sound mirrored what was happening just 95 miles north in New York. "All of them were on some lyrical indie hip-hop shit," says former radio DJ Bobbito Garcia, a 1984 graduate of Lower Merion.
That's where the similarities end. With the record companies located primarily in New York, the scene was still very much based on networking and nebulous connections — a cousin who knew someone in Russell Simmons's office or a friend of a friend interning at Bad Boy. Artists strove to get their demos into the right hands. Meanwhile in Philly, rappers on the cusp won exposure and credibility in a more traditional way: They battled.
Bryant was born in Philadelphia but moved when he was 6 years old, after his father Joe "Jellybean" Bryant signed with a professional basketball team in the central Italian city of Rieti. When Bryant returned to Philly at the age of 14, he met Anthony Bannister, a 16-year-old working at the Jewish community center on City Avenue where Joe Bryant was the fitness director. "Kobe was 14, skinny, wiry but passionate and determined," Bannister recalls about first meeting Kobe in 1992. They quickly bonded over basketball and beats. At first, Bannister was Bryant's rap cicerone, providing a crash course on the golden age of hip-hop Bryant had missed while living abroad. Bryant took up rhyming soon after, battling in the Lower Merion lunchroom and pounding out beats for other MCs with a pencil and eraser.
Bryant also befriended the best rapper in school, Kevin "Sandman" Sanchez, who taught him about breath control and enunciation. At the time, Bannister, who knew Sanchez from the scene, was scouting MCs with the intention of forming a group; he fancied himself a RZA-like mastermind. With Bryant and Sanchez already in the fold, Bannister added Broady Boy and Jester. The group drew its name from the Chi Sah gang in the Shaw Brothers kung fu flick The Kid With the Golden Arm; they later altered it to the acronym CHEIZAW.5
"I thought we were the best in the city at that time," Bannister says. "Kobe was nice, man. He was lyrical. I wouldn't have put him in the group if he wasn't."
Bannister, sitting on a bench in Rittenhouse Square on a cold Monday afternoon in early April, is nostalgic about those days. There are too many memories of times with friends now estranged. He remembers one night when the CHEIZAW gang left a show at Gotham, an old club on Delaware Avenue, stopped by Rittenhouse Square, and rhymed all night.
They rapped everywhere together. CHEIZAW battled at South Street, Parkside, Temple University, an underground mall called the Gallery, and Belmont Plateau, which was immortalized in DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince's "Summertime." Bryant, who called himself The Eighth Man, often didn't battle other crews but always rhymed in what Sanchez calls the group's internal sparring sessions.
Al Price, a Philly MC from the group Black Ops, recalls one such session at Broady's apartment. "In a room full of hungry underground MCs, he was just another hungry underground MC," Price says. "Kobe liked to catch you off guard. He liked the competitive part of it. He liked to dig into the beat and flow and mess with rhythms and tone and pitches. You could tell, he wasn't dope by accident."
"Kobe was talented," Sanchez says. "I remember when the movie Solo came out with Mario Van Peebles, Kobe wrote this rhyme about him being a cyborg destroying MCs."
That's where the similarities end. With the record companies located primarily in New York, the scene was still very much based on networking and nebulous connections — a cousin who knew someone in Russell Simmons's office or a friend of a friend interning at Bad Boy. Artists strove to get their demos into the right hands. Meanwhile in Philly, rappers on the cusp won exposure and credibility in a more traditional way: They battled.
Bryant was born in Philadelphia but moved when he was 6 years old, after his father Joe "Jellybean" Bryant signed with a professional basketball team in the central Italian city of Rieti. When Bryant returned to Philly at the age of 14, he met Anthony Bannister, a 16-year-old working at the Jewish community center on City Avenue where Joe Bryant was the fitness director. "Kobe was 14, skinny, wiry but passionate and determined," Bannister recalls about first meeting Kobe in 1992. They quickly bonded over basketball and beats. At first, Bannister was Bryant's rap cicerone, providing a crash course on the golden age of hip-hop Bryant had missed while living abroad. Bryant took up rhyming soon after, battling in the Lower Merion lunchroom and pounding out beats for other MCs with a pencil and eraser.
Bryant also befriended the best rapper in school, Kevin "Sandman" Sanchez, who taught him about breath control and enunciation. At the time, Bannister, who knew Sanchez from the scene, was scouting MCs with the intention of forming a group; he fancied himself a RZA-like mastermind. With Bryant and Sanchez already in the fold, Bannister added Broady Boy and Jester. The group drew its name from the Chi Sah gang in the Shaw Brothers kung fu flick The Kid With the Golden Arm; they later altered it to the acronym CHEIZAW.5
"I thought we were the best in the city at that time," Bannister says. "Kobe was nice, man. He was lyrical. I wouldn't have put him in the group if he wasn't."
Bannister, sitting on a bench in Rittenhouse Square on a cold Monday afternoon in early April, is nostalgic about those days. There are too many memories of times with friends now estranged. He remembers one night when the CHEIZAW gang left a show at Gotham, an old club on Delaware Avenue, stopped by Rittenhouse Square, and rhymed all night.
They rapped everywhere together. CHEIZAW battled at South Street, Parkside, Temple University, an underground mall called the Gallery, and Belmont Plateau, which was immortalized in DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince's "Summertime." Bryant, who called himself The Eighth Man, often didn't battle other crews but always rhymed in what Sanchez calls the group's internal sparring sessions.
Al Price, a Philly MC from the group Black Ops, recalls one such session at Broady's apartment. "In a room full of hungry underground MCs, he was just another hungry underground MC," Price says. "Kobe liked to catch you off guard. He liked the competitive part of it. He liked to dig into the beat and flow and mess with rhythms and tone and pitches. You could tell, he wasn't dope by accident."
"Kobe was talented," Sanchez says. "I remember when the movie Solo came out with Mario Van Peebles, Kobe wrote this rhyme about him being a cyborg destroying MCs."
