Necro

Ron Raphael Braunstein (born June 7, 1976 in Brooklyn), professionally known by his stage name Necro, is an American rapper and record producer from New York City.

In 1988, he started rapping after being influenced by his older brother, rapper Ill Bill.

Necro derived his stage name from the Slayer song "Necrophiliac".

Before that he called himself "Mad Mooney", which was a character from a Clive Barker book.

He started producing hip hop beats in 1989 by looping up records and bought an Ensoniq EPS in 1991.

In the following years he produced beats for artists like Non Phixion, Cage, Krist and Missing Linx, who all released independent singles.

He made his first demo in about 1990 and won a demo battle contest on the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show on WKCR-FM.

In about 1993, Necro started rapping full-time and made a demo called "Do The Charles Manson".

In 1995, he proceeded to rap on the Wildman Steve and DJ Riz show WBAU 90.3FM.

Necro lists Kool G Rap as one of his biggest influences in terms of multi-syllabic rhyme structure and content, as well as LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, Rakim and the Geto Boys.

Necro is also influenced by heavy metal/death metal lyrics, as well as gangster/horror movies, musicals and popular culture.

Necro raps in a hip hop sub-genre called horrorcore.

He has done rap metal and has combined rap with death metal music.

Necro refers to his music as "death rap" to describe his style of ultraviolent hip hop and to distinguish himself from other genre labels created by the media.

His music combines death metal beats with explicit raps about violence, death, the occult, drugs and sex.

Necro is a self-taught musician and has been playing instruments since the age of ten.

The first record he produced that received airplay was "No Tomorrow" by Non Phixion in 1996, put out on Searchlight Music/FatBeats Distribution.

The first wave of albums released on Necro's label were produced by Necro himself.

He founded his own independent record label Psycho+Logical-Records in November 1999.

He is a member of hip hop groups the Circle of Tyrants and Secret Society together with his older brother Ill Bill, and one-half of The Godfathers alongside Kool G Rap.

Necro was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the Glenwood Houses, where he lived for eight years from about six years old to age 14, when he moved to Canarsie, Brooklyn.

Born into a Jewish family, he is the son of Israeli immigrants, with ancestry from Israel and Romania.

Necro's father was a Romanian-born Israeli soldier and his mother an Orthodox baalat teshuva.

This includes the debut solo albums of Non-Phixion members Ill Bill, Sabac Red and Goretex after he already produced 7 songs for Non Phixion's debut album The Future Is Now in 2002 and Non Phixion's "The Green CD' in 2004, and two albums for label member Mr Hyde. In 2009, a beat Necro produced in 1997 was used by Raekwon on his album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II for the song "Gihad", which also featured Ghostface Killah.

Since the inception of his rap career Necro has been influenced by the genre of heavy metal, and more specifically death metal, which has altered his path into hip hop.

He has been quoted in interviews citing death metal as a key influence for his rhymes, Chuck Schuldiner's Death in particular.

Necro has said that he is heavily influenced by the thrash metal albums Kill 'Em All, Reign in Blood, Slowly We Rot, Leprosy, and Master of Puppets, and he has remarked that those albums take him back to "the '80s when shit was pure".

Necro rapped over a death metal blast beat on the track "Suffocated to Death by God's Shadow", with the drums being played by Mike Smith from the band Suffocation and has also collaborated with Scott Ian of Anthrax and Dave Ellefson of Megadeth, two members of the "Big 4", on the track "Evil Rules".

Necro references heavy metal acts in his rhymes as well.

For instance, on "Underground", Necro states he will "penetrate your skull like a riff from Obituary's 'Slowly We Rot'" and quotes Metallica's "Master of Puppets" by saying "Taste me you will see / more is all you need / dedicated to / how I'm killing you".

Over the years, Necro has increased his referencing and collaborations with underground metal acts, as evidenced by his 2004 album The Pre-Fix for Death, which features many references and collaborations with heavy metal musicians from Obituary, Hatebreed, Slipknot, and Voivod.

In addition, Necro created his own group known as The Circle of Tyrants, named after a song by Celtic Frost.

The Circle of Tyrants album also contains collaborations with artists from Testament, Exhumed, and Sepultura as well as song titles named after '80s thrash metal songs such as Slayer's "South of Heaven" and Metallica's "The Four Horsemen".

Necro is known for releasing conceptual songs.

His multilayered, wide-ranging concepts explore how he beats and murders people who aren't as tough as him and the creative ways in which he has sex with women.

Songs have tackled topics like the Manson murders: "Creepy Crawl", "Cockroaches", "Scalpel", "The 12 King Pimp Commandments", "Dead Body Disposal", "The Human Traffic King", "White Slavery", "I Need Drugs", "Food For Thought", "S.T.D.", picking up women ("86 Measures of Game"), cannibalism ("Human Consumption"), suicide ("You Did It"), bondage and sex games ("EdgePlay"), watersports and micturition ("Piss"), life as a pimp ("Out the Pocket"), a revenge tale ("Some Get Back (Revenge)"), and war narratives ("First Blood").

When he was in high school he was popular among the hip hop fans that went to his school until he got kicked out for fighting in the 10th grade and sold drugs to make money.

He constantly read books.

He began his musical career at 11, playing in a death metal band named Injustice.

He made a transition from heavy metal to hip hop.