Slick Rick - Children's Story - Evaluation 2

Slick Rick’s self produced ‘Children’s Story’ follows in similar vein to Eminem’s ‘When I’m Gone’ in several aspects. Slick Rick is who is referred to as an ‘Old Skool’ artist in hip hop, meaning his music was recognised predominantly in the late 80’s and mid 90’s when hip hop as a genre was still relatively new.

Also known as ‘Ricky D’/’Slick Rick Tha Ruler’ he is considered the greatest storytelling hip hop artists of all time, being able to create fascinating stories which delve into the deepest, darkest or even most personal of subjects, including misogyny and degradation of woman, showcasing his aptitude for storytelling with a 3 minute raw-to-the-bone simplistic beat, quick flow and high tempo;

You would think with Rick creating a ‘pimpster’ attitude, always seen in video wearing gold chains around his neck along with an eye patch over his left eye, becoming his trademark star image motif, that it would be difficult for him to appeal to a a wide audience. But because of his pimp-like dress sense, ‘Children’s Story’ and himself as an artist were marketed as a product who could still deliver a hard hitting moral tale and manage to put a humorous and acceptable comedy spin to the main premise, delivering the deep story his hip hop audience looks for and creating something any genre fan wouldn’t be afraid to listen and dance too in a club.

Despite his audience possibly not being able to really connect to any of his music on a cultural level, his accent and unusual rhyme scheme become hypnotic and entrancing, producing music subject to a lot of repetition and mimicking over the past 20 years, leading him to becoming the most sampled hip hop artist. Accidentally creating his main star image motif though his his incredibly smooth and mellow English-American acsent and many catchphrases.


‘Children’s Story’ is 100% narrative based, beginning with two woman lying in a double bed either side of a male dwarf dressed in Pyjamas asking to be read a bedtime story, before revealing the irony of the title; ‘Children’s Story’ as not a story for children, but a story about tragic greed as a young boy is coaxed into robbing old people for money and being given guns and drugs; often being interpreted as a condemnation of violence and drug use.


‘Dave the dope fiend shootin' dope,
who don't know the meaning of water nor soap,
He said "I need bullets, hurry up, run!"
the dope fiend brought back a spanking shotgun,’


Once again there is no intended relationship established between the visuals and the music, despite a distinct beat running throughout. Strangely, despite both the visuals and the lyrics being very narrative driven and telling a complete story from beginning to end, there is also almost no connection between the lyrics and the visuals either. creating a piece which the auter has clealy had Amplification in mind, showing different stories, contradicting each other with only one main element; that being the small boy who ends up holding a gun. This goes back to Slick Rick being able to put a comedy spin on the most serious of subjects, with the visuals becoming one huge intertextual reference, mimicking the silent black and white cops and robber film. Parody becoming something his audience always expects to see in any new video.

‘Grabbed a pregnant lady and out the automatic,
Pointed at her head and he said the gun was full o' lead,
he told the cops "Back off or honey here's dead’

Visuals show a boy squirting a group of police men with a water pistol. Regardless of the mismatch, this is the only point within the main video segment that the two pieces, the lyrics and the visuals, justify the amplification mentioned earlier The boy does pull out an automatic gun and does point it at a ladies head, but she isn’t pregnant, nor is the gun full of lead as the lyrics claim. ‘

Slick's reputation and image to contradict or amplify a certain lyric is common, as shown in later videos such as ‘I shouldn’t have done it’ is a self confession for his attempted murder, yet the video says no woman would ever want him after he tells her about the shooting incident; glorifying their womanly figure to fit more sexual intentions.