High & Mighty

The High & Mighty are an underground hip hop duo from Philadelphia consisting of rapper Mr. Eon («The High», b. Eric Meltzer) and DJ Mighty Mi («The Mighty», b. Milo Berger). Their commercial debut was in 1999 on the underground rap label Rawkus with their album, Home Field Advantage, featuring rappers such as Mos Def, Kool Keith, What?What? (aka Jean Grae), Pharoahe Monch, Evidence of Dilated Peoples, Defari and Eminem. They later left Rawkus, distributing the records issued by their own record company Eastern Conference Records via Landspeed Records. They also established a group called Smut Peddlers with Cage and published an album called Porn Again.

The High and Mighty have a penchant for subjects that break the usual hip hop stereotypes. The titles of their albums and the name of their record label are both references to one of their favourite musical subjects, American professional team sports. Home Field Advantage, for example, features numerous sporting references, including the track Friendly Game of Football and mentions of the ‘69 New York Mets, Cris Carter and Jason Sehorn, among others. Jose Reyes and David Wright of the Mets were mentioned in the song «Key Master» («We the future like Reyes and David Wright on Fireworks Night»). Another recurring source of lyrical fodder is the Star Wars film series, with Home Field Advantage including lines about Jedi Master Mace Windu, the bounty hunter Greedo, Anakin Skywalker and the shiny droid C-3PO.

Rapper Masta Ace called them «a couple of high whiteys» in his hit battle rap «Acknowledge». This diss was probably because he was not pleased that they mentioned listening to his records in their «Jewish slaughterhouse» (referencing Ace’s album Slaughtahouse) - it is not clear whether Ace simply misunderstood their homage or whether he attacked them for being white hip-hop musicians. According to Ace himself, however, another rapper had told him that the High and Mighty had dissed him at one of their shows. This prompted him to create the devastating Acknowledge song on his 2001 album Disposable Arts. Ace eventually learned that he was misinformed, but the track had already been released, presumably causing embarrassment and ending the feud.

They also had a feud with rapper Cage, which resulted in «Public Property» from Cage’s 2005 album, Hell’s Winter.

Their song «B-Boy Document ‘99» was featured in the popular Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 video game.