Christ Bearer: The rapper who chopped his own cock off
Whether they’re a rapper, a writer or any kind of celebrity, money, fame and acclaim are often the worst things that can possibly happen to someone.
Now, sure, I’m not going to be one of those numpties wagging their finger at people going “money can’t buy you happiness!!” Let’s be real here, it can. Or at least it can buy you the security you need to pursue your own happiness on your own terms. However, there does seem to be a threshold you pass when celebrity comes a’calling that turns a sensible, normal person into a raving narcissist that can’t help but prize their own ego over the happiness and peace of others.
Giving that kind of person a ton of money is a very different thing. That, combined with notoriety and clout, brings out the absolute worst in people and gives you the kind of stories like that of the rapper Christ Bearer, or Andre Johnson to his mother. For a period of time in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Johnson (a cruelly fitting name if there ever was one) had a fairly exciting career in hip-hop to his name as a member of the duo Northstar along with Meko The Pharaoh.
Together, they were signed by The RZA himself to Wu-Tang Records and began working on a number of Wu-Tang affiliated projects, like the RZA-soundtracked movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. After making a name for themselves that way, Northstar released a handful of records, none of which set the world on fire, but were successful enough to keep them as working hip-hop artists. No, the thing that made Johnson famous wouldn’t come until 2014.
It was also the kind of famous that absolutely no one in hip-hop would want.
What happened to make this rapper chop his own penis off?
So, the whole story is fucked up from the start.
On April 16th, 2014, news broke that Johnson had attempted suicide by jumping from the second-floor balcony of a Los Angeles apartment building. He’d survived, but then an even stranger part of the puzzle fell into place. The threat to his life came not from the fall, but from the fact that immediately before he jumped, he’d chopped a large part of his own penis off.
Johnson survived the experience and, a few years later, was able to fill in the blanks of what had caused this breakdown. First and foremost, it was drugs. Johnson had been off his face on PCP when he’d had a blazing argument with the mother of his children about a restraining order that had been placed on him, preventing him from seeing his kids. This was not the only restraining order placed on him, so in his drug-addled state, he thought the only thing to do was give himself an amateur vasectomy.
It’s… kind of a miracle he lived through this at all, but today, Johnson is surprisingly level-headed about it. Saying in an interview with the BBC that he’s “still able to work with what he’s got” and even, quite shockingly, that he’s “proud of what he did”.
Reasoning that “In the annals of history, I don’t think anybody did it.” Which…annoyingly enough, might not even be true? But that’s not a Google rabbit hole any of us wants to fall down. The image search results, can you imagine?!
Anyway, you’ll be delighted to know that Johnson himself is available on Cameo these days; he does seem to have the spare time. A video from him at the bargain price of 750 quid. Christ indeed.