R.I.P. GM Web D aka X-Ray da Mindbenda aka King Cesar, a Long Island hip-hop institution unto himself

Raymond Davis, better known as Web D, X-Ray, or King Cesar, passed away earlier this month. No details about his death have been made public as far as I can tell. To say the least, his absence is a major loss not only for Long Island rap, but the greater global hip-hop community. 

The fact that Davis was known by three monikers, each with its own discography, only hints at the breadth of his impact. To many, he's best known for his connections with MF DOOM through Operation: Doomsday and the Monsta Island Czars. Lesser known is the fact that DOOM's first single was "recorded & mixed at Web's crib" (as per the center label), or that he served as a mentor to both DOOM and Subroc.

Even lesser known is the fact that Web D had groups called the East Side 5 and the Players Club running around Long Beach and WBAU in the early 1980s, or that he went to high school with Rick Rubin and sold him a mixer at one point. Think about this. When Rick Rubin was in high school, he was a punk rocker. Conceivably, Web D was one of the first people making rap music in Rick Rubin's vicinity. The same Rick Rubin went on to co-found Def Jam, produce some of Run DMC and LL Cool J's biggest hits, and thereby help bring rap music to the masses. Apocrypha or not, let that marinate.

I never met Ray in person, but he'd reached out to me online to premiere two King Cesar videos in 2016, and the "Bloody Knuckles" post remains one of the 10 most viewed in this site's history. Tragically, three of the four artists involved in that song are now gone. I was able to get back in contact with Ray through Dope Folks Records in 2020. He and Kevroc were kind enough to get on the phone with me for 52 minutes during the early days of lockdown. It's one of my favorite interviews I've ever done. Trust that if I'd known at the time about the Players Club or the Rick Rubin connections, I would've stretched the call well past an hour. 

Ray Davis was a true original. It’s hard to define his sound because as a producer, he was able to flip so many different styles, and his influence, even if unrecognized, filtered down to so many other artists. Raw, massive, funky, cinematic, his beats were like themes for drive-in movie concession stands operating out of time, selling exotic hybrids not yet crossed. 

He was one-half of Darc Mind, the best rapper-producer duo your friends, who listen to hip-hop but don't obsess over it the way you do, have never heard of. Fix that. Don’t let his music die with him.