Viper
Part of a series on Satirical Hip Hop / Meme Rap. [View Related Entries]
About
Viper is the stage name of Houston-based hip hop artist Lee Carter who has gained a cult online following for his unconventional style of rapping and prolific output of records, with the most notable release being his 2008 rap album You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack.
Online History
Carter learned how to play the piano at the age of 5 and picked up rapping at the age of 9. Through his teenage years, Carter began recording and producing music tracks on his own, although it wasn't until he graduated from college that he really started focusing on producing and distributing his mixtapes, all by himself.
You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
On February 19th, 2008, Carter released his hour-long, self-produced album titled You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack via iTunes[9], which was met by mildly positive feedback from a few college music review sites[2][3][4][6] for its decisively independent approach to beat-making and rapping.
However, both the album and the artist largely remained in the periphery of underground hip hop scene until May 1st, 2013, when the full-length version of You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack was uploaded to YouTube. The record quickly gained notoriety for its confoundingly upfront album title and tacky album cover art.[4]
Reception
On July 15th, VICE's music blog Noisey[8] published a feature interview with the Houston rapper in an article titled "MEET VIPER, THE GENIUS RAPPER BEHIND "YOU'LL COWARDS DON'T EVEN SMOKE CRACK." On February 25th, 2014, a link to Viper's You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack on YouTube was submitted to Reddit for the first time in a /r/NotTimAndEric post[11] by Redditor Im_a_fucking_bear. Throughout 2014, a handful of additional posts highlighting Viper's album continued to surface on Reddit.[12][13] As of February 2015, Viper's Twitter account[5] has nearly 45,000 followers.
Notable Examples
You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack has become a meme in and of itself, for the reasons previously mentioned, with various album cover parodies available on Tumblr and Reddit. Viper's other album covers have been occasionally used as reaction images, largely due to the amateur quality of the artworks and bluntness of the album titles, as well as the overuse of clipart images, photographs of himself and poorly-superimposed text.
Album Covers
Album Title Parodies
Personal Life
Carter was born in El Dorado, Arkansas, and later moved to Houston, Texas. He began rapping at the age of 9. Ouside of his rapping, Viper also became a real estate broker after graduating from The University of Houston in 2000.[1]
Search Interest
External References
[2] Rate Your Music – Albums by Viper
[3] Rate Your Music – You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack by Viper
[4] The Chicago Reader – 12 O'Clock Track – You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack is outsider-hip-hop brilliance
[5] Twitter – @RapperViper
[6] The Observer – Meet Viper, rap’s Renaissance man
[7] MTV (via Wayback Machine) – Viper the Rapper
[8] Vice – MEET VIPER, THE GENIUS RAPPER BEHIND 'YOU'LL COWARDS DON'T EVEN SMOKE CRACK'
[9] iTunes – You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
[10] Genius – You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
[11] Reddit – Viper / You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
[12] Reddit – Viper / You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
[13] Reddit – Viper is a Struggle Rapper Who Released 333 Albums This Year
Related Entries 19 total
![[FULL ALBUM] Viper - You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack (2008)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dl0uFtClAmw/hqdefault.jpg "[FULL ALBUM] Viper - You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack (2008)")
![VIPER We'll Be Right Вack with crack Dhoult swim]](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/001/939/155/c16.jpg "Tha Viper Andre Show")
Top Comments
iBlewupthemoon
Feb 05, 2015 at 08:32PM EST
greenreapergod
Feb 05, 2015 at 05:34PM EST