Specimen 6-432-3 wakes from cryosleep surrounded by lab technicians in a shadowy research facility. A gravelly, commanding voice greets him: “Well, well, well. Sleeping Beauty finally decides to open his pretty little eyes.”
These early moments of “The Specimen: Issue 00,” the new album from Richmond rapper Nickelus F, might scan as a skit – the kind of interlude placed between hip-hop tracks to establish mood or context. But “The Specimen” is no ordinary album, and the rebirth of its main character isn’t just fiction. As close collaborator Will Keck, founder of theMSQshop consultancy and CNTR (A Creative Space), puts it: “It’s a comic book, and it’s not the real world, but it’s real life.”
Nickelus F, real name Daniel Jones, is a longtime comic fan and collector. He was born in Portland, Oregon, but moved around during childhood — to Germany, West Virginia and within Virginia — as a result of his father’s military job. His dad got him his first comic books when they were living in Hampton; a Charlottesville neighbor subsequently fueled the hobby via a basement collection so vast it formed a cityscape of its own. “It had so many comic books, it was like a shop,” he says. “He could barely move around. There were little lanes.”
He was especially taken with the classic 1990s X-Men series written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Jim Lee. He soon started drawing strips of his own. “That was the genesis for me,” he remembers. “I would be in classes making my own little stories, drawing lines across my paper to create panels and drawing little pictures in each one.”
He started rapping in sixth grade and has since built a body of work that includes prolific recorded output during the late 2000s and the 2010s, a collaborative relationship with hip-hop star Drake, a landmark 2018 release on Vinyl Conflict Records titled “Stuck,” and plenty of his own production work along the way. But never have his passions for music and comic books converged so thoroughly.
Building his skill set
While some story-based albums offer lyrical breadcrumbs for the listener to follow or a broad symbolic arc, “The Specimen: Issue 00” is an immersive auditory experience, combining narration, voice acting, sound effects and songs that expound upon the hero’s mindset.
Nickelus F is among the actors, building on nascent voiceover experience from his day job providing creative direction at Adobe Inc., as well as his ongoing quest to improve his lyrical delivery. “I’ve worked over the years on learning how to use my voice as an instrument, going to different registers and finding different comfort zones,” he says. “With the acting, there were multiple takes of that. It took me working on it.”
In that sense, the rapper is similar to his album’s main character. The plight of the Specimen, who sits frozen for five years, emerges hazily and struggles to accept his new assignment, mirrors the rapper’s path over the last half decade. “It’s a story about being who you’re called to be,” he says.
Though “Stuck” was an artistic achievement, the album chronicles a difficult time in Nickelus F’s life. Then in his mid-thirties, he’d been through a bad breakup and was working toward a degree in strategic copywriting from Virginia Commonwealth University while living with his parents, who decided to settle in Richmond when he was in high school. He felt, in a word, stuck. “I wasn’t making any money at the time,” he says, “and after I graduated, it still took me a year and some change to find a job in the field that I went to school for.”
As the pressure to relaunch his life mounted, he reached a breaking point. “I need something to shake for me,” he remembers thinking. “I came to tears that day. I was shouting at the universe, the creator, whatever it was … After I let it out, I felt like I did something.”
The universe shouted back. The next week, he got a job offer from a Richmond ad agency. In 2020, he moved over to Capital One to further broaden his skill set. He was seeing professional momentum, but still searching for a musical path forward. This was during a self-imposed social media blackout whose duration matches the Specimen’s time in cryostasis. It’s not that he wasn’t making music; quite the opposite. “I tried a bunch of things,” he says, “made a bunch of different sorts of tapes … Then I hit a wall and I put everything down.”
Cut to a bleak, trash-lined street in a fictionalized River City, where “The Specimen: Issue 00” is set. Desperation is everywhere as a result of a crime wave. A woman being mugged cries for help, but the Specimen passes by, not convinced he’s the hero others expect him to be. This so-called Shrouded Woman approaches the Specimen a few songs later, shaming him for his indifference. Something inside him stirs, and his reluctance dissolves.
Even before his “Stuck” era, Nickelus F faced down a common source of reluctance: his age. He admits that he once put stock in the idea that rapping into middle age was a regrettable fate, and his moniker was inspired by a Marvel character, Nick Fury, whose powers allow him to skirt the aging process. “That’s the line all rappers say,” he notes. “You hit 40, you’re not rapping anymore.” Now that he’s reached 40, a milestone he mentions on his new album, he’s found firmer ground. “I remember how embarrassed I was being 32 going back to VCU with four kids, back in my parents basement, [but] 32 doesn’t even seem old at all to me now… I remember turning 40 and feeling good about it.”
Cue the collaboration
The Specimen’s change of heart is also indicative of Nickelus F’s growth as a collaborator. His skills as an emcee, which were forged in battle rap and have been displayed widely by outlets like 106 & Park and Top Shelf Premium, are complemented by his accomplished beat-making skills. He’s capable of being his own one-stop shop, and the production on the new album is all his. The script also started solo — a flash of inspiration that, fueled by takeout from Hatch Local Food Hall, yielded an opening scene that echoed music he’d been working on. But the project truly caught fire when the rapper began enlisting help.
His kids became a sounding board. Playing them early mixes on the way to and from school helped him strengthen the plot. “The more questions he asked,” Nickelus F says of his son, “the more it started to fill out, and then the more committed I became to it.”
As the story took shape and AI voice generation proved unsatisfying, he began hiring voice actors. Finding the perfect Captain, who greets the Specimen when he wakes from cryosleep, gave the project a shot in the arm. “The first bit I got [was] the lab technicians,” he says. “I was happy with them. But what really set it off for me was when I got Captain… When I heard his voice, I was like, ‘Yes. We’re doing this.’”
Banding together turned out to be an end unto itself. “The Specimen: Issue 00” is the inaugural release from a new company called 9 Panel Media, which Will Keck describes as “a comic book company that releases music.” Planned projects include comics, figurines and tie-ins featuring other artists, and the first step was helping “The Specimen” cross the finish line via even more question-asking and -answering. “It came together via the Socratic method,” Nickelus F jokes. The partnership joins the rapper’s varied abilities, the project management and creative consultancy of Will Keck and the visual world-building of Richmond-based artist Chris Visions.
Chris is the one who has been bringing the Specimen to life in vivid blues and pinks — on the album’s cover and in forms yet to be shared publicly. Nickelus F praises him as “the name when it comes to local comic book artists.” Though Nickelus F wrote character descriptions, he gave Chris leeway to run with the hero’s look. “When it comes to the colors and the tone, that’s all his brainchild,” Nickelus F says. “He had a good understanding of the things that I like from comic books… He’s a great, observant artist.”
The Specimen has his own “rally the troops” moment as the story builds to its final showdown. After his encounter with the Shrouded Woman, he assembles a tactical team. During the mission, “all hell broke loose,” in the words of the British-sounding narrator, and our hero finds himself bound and facing death. (Observant fans may sense a callback to the “Stuck” vinyl album art, which shows the rapper wrapped in duct tape.) Only when the Specimen’s back is against the wall can the cryogenic science, self-reflection and newfound purpose combine to activate his latent powers.
“This is what I’m called to do,” Nickelus F affirms, sounding just like the character he dreamed up. “I know I’m meant to inspire people with my words … My character deciding to be that hero is like me deciding that I’m gonna to stop holding onto this music.
“I’m finally going to express my power and share my light with the world.”
To hear “The Specimen: Issue 00,” visit foundation-media.ffm.to/specimenissue.
