Tattooing Eyeballs Black Sends Brooklyn Rapper Mace To Hospital: Why You Shouldn’t Get Your Sclera Inked
A young Brooklyn rapper was hospitalized after he underwent a procedure that tattooed his eyes black — a trend that has been circulating among rappers recently.
The rapper, who goes by the name Mace, was seemingly following in the footsteps of Jamaican dancehall rapper Alkaline, who got his eyes tattooed black to help him stand out from other musicians. While Alkaline didn’t suffer any problems from the procedure, Mace ended up with complications in his right eye. The procedure, unlike regular skin tattooing, is fairly quick: it involves injecting the sclera (or white of the eye) with an ink-filled needle. But it can lead to blurred vision, or in the worst cases, blindness.
Mace, however, appears to have recovered. “My eyes feel better now thoe,” he wrote on his Facebook, according to The Mirror. “On medication for 2 weeks! Thank God i didnt get blind thoe.” Later, he wrote: “Now what i say? Di media sayinq im blinded in 1 eye but yet i can still see.”
Alkaline underwent the experimental tattooing in order to help differentiate himself from other rappers. “We have like 10 million artist in Jamaica,” Alkaline said in a video interview. “I think to distinguish myself from every other entertainer, why not just tat my eyes?” And he’s not too worried about the risks of the procedure, which is so new that not much is known about its implications (and has been banned in Oklahoma).
“Take it this way,” he said in the interview, defending his decision. “In the event, at any given time that this will pose a threat to my vision, I would just reverse it. … This is the 21st century so anything is possible.”