Four Songs to Rock the House
I make hip hop music. I have been for over a decade. The thing about it is... I don't really like most hip hop music and I absolutely LOATHE the local hip hop scene. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE the music I make. I think the whole point of making your own music is to make what you yourself want to hear. I think I would listen to more hip hop if more of it sounded like the kind I make.
For the past decade, I have been making music with my friend, Aaron. He is an emcee that goes by the name of Intalek. He is one of the best emcees I have ever heard. His lyrics are witty and funny. He uses a lot of wordplay and rhymes about unconventional subject matter. He moved to Colorado for two years to pursue a career in music but has recently come back to CT.
This is all just back-story. Bottom line: we have been doing it for a long time and we know what the fuck we are doing. We've put in a lot of hard work and have paid a lot of dues. Yet EVERY time we play a show, we are treated like a couple of douche bags that don't know their asses from their faces - until we actually perform, that is.
We played our first show together in three years this past Saturday. Nothing big. It was just a try-out of sorts to prove to the promoter that we could pull a crowd and rock a show. We were given 10 - 15 minutes to perform four songs. The promoter kind of jammed us into the middle of some DJ's set. The DJ was cool about it, but he had some drunk toady-lackey guy hanging around his table who was talking all kinds of shit about us while we were setting up. He was about 4-foot nothing tall and sexually frustrated. This type of asshole is annoying, but is also prevalent. I have encountered his type before. So I just ignored him and continued to set up our stuff for sound check.
Next, the know-it-all-wanna-be-sound-man started helping us "tweak our levels." This was just some asshole out of the crowd who was in no way affiliated with the club or us. He started lecturing us about how "beginners" often make the mistake of having too much high-end on their vocals. Then he told me all about the five bands he is in and how awesome they all are and how he is so funny when he freestyles. Meanwhile, I'm just trying to get through sound check. Then he asks if he could get up on stage during our set and spit some of his stuff. I was like, "Yeah. Just let us play four or five songs, first."
So our sound is checked and we are all ready to go. Next thing we know, the drunken flunky gets up on the stage and tells the crowd (all of whom we brought to the venue, mind you) to stick around after we play to hear his "boys, spit some REAL hip hop." So within the course of ten minutes we had some guy call us "beginners" while asking to get in on our set, and another guy tell our audience that we are not "real hip hop." And all of this BEFORE we even spoke a single WORD. I wish this were an unusual occurrence, but this kind of shit seems to happen EVERY SHOW.
The is no sense of comradery in the hip hop scene. Everybody has a "boy who can rhyme better than you" and everybody feels the need to tell you about their boy who can rhyme better than you. I hate it. When I played in a punk rock band, everyone was so supportive of each other. Bands would go out of their way to get other bands on the same bill as them. Even the most inexperienced bands were treated with respect. If there is a hip hop scene out there that is like that, I have yet to find it.
We rocked our set and had the crowd jumping. Then when we were done, the ENTIRE audience left the venue. I guess that is a small kind of revenge. The promoter was impressed, too. He scheduled a full show for us later in the month. After three years, it felt damn good to be up on stage. Unfortunately, the scene hasn't progressed as much as we have in that time frame.