'Adventures in Cult City'.
Serge Buyse is a Belgian rap artist, best known under his artistic pseudonyms BZA, Buzze or Dommestiek. He is one of the two lead singers of the Flemish rap group 't Hof van Commerce. Buyse also serves as their album cover illustrator. Lesser known is that he also created the comic book series 'Adventures in Cult City' (2009),
Life and musical career
Serge Buyse was born in 1973 in Izegem in the coastal province West Flanders. In the early 1990s he performed in a local band called The Prophets of Finance. Inspired by the success of the Amsterdam hiphop band Osdorp Posse, headed by Def P, Buyse and his friends also decided to rap in their local dialect. In 1997 Buyse, Flip Kowlier and DJ 4T4 (Kristof Michiels) founded 't Hof van Commerce. Their hip hop band sang in the dialect West Flemish and enjoyed some cult success over the years with minor hits such as 'Dommestik and Levrancier' (1998), 'Kom Mor Ip' (2002), 'Niemand Grodder' (2005), 'Jaloes' (2005) and 'Stuntman' (2012). They've released five albums. Apart from their group activities, each band member also enjoyed a solo career, of which Kowlier's received the most media attention. Buyse released his own solo album, 'Buyse' in 2011. The trio also founded their own record label, Plasticine.
Cover art for 'Herman' (1999).
Graphic and comics career
Apart from rapping, Buyse also enjoys drawing. He studied graphic and textile design and later animation. Buyse designed the pig on the cover of 't Hof's second album, 'Herman' (1999). Together with Lucia Pamela, Urbanus, Schoolly D., Kurt Cobain, Def P, Daniel Johnston, Adam Wallenta and Dallas Tamaira he is one of the few musicians to have designed his own album covers and make comics-related artwork. While he did read European comics during his youth, like Peter De Smet's 'De Generaal', Toon van Driel's 'F.C. Knudde', Marc Hardy and Raoul Cauvin's 'Pierre Tombal' and André Franquin's 'Gaston Lagaffe', he preferred American superhero and horror comics. He counts Ralph Steadman, Mike Mignola, Richard Corben, Dave McKean, Chris Ware, Steven Millionaire, Paul Pope, Michael Golden, Steven Wiseman, Graham Ingels, Bill Sienkiewicz, JP Leon and Sean Phillips among his influences.
One of his first attempts to draw a comic book was 'Lucha Libre' (1999). However, because he was unsatisfied with the artwork, the book was never published. He reused the same characters in a follow-up graphic novel, 'The Adventures in Cult City' (2009). The story is a homage to horror and kung fu pulp. It tells the tale of five young people who decide to explore the graveyard of Cult City where they discover all kinds of monsters. The book was published by Ooga Booga Comics, a company founded by cartoonist Lectrr. Buyse decided to publish it in English rather than his home language to reach a wider audience. Together with Def P, Schoolly D and Adam Wallenta, he is one of the few rappers who've made comics.
In 2013 Buyse also became a tattoo artist. He works in the Inksane tattoo shop in Roeselare.
'Lucha Libre'.