The Beat Q & A: Xzibit

Hard to believe it's been 10 years since I first heard of Xzibit on the West Coast underground circuit.

Back then, he was regarded as an up and coming LA MC, down with Tha Alkaholiks crew. Gruff voiced with lyrics to go, his big hit was a song called "Papparrazzi." The video and song were an indictment of fake gangsta posers, and Xzibit took a strong stance against gangsta rappers in general, although he has since backed off of that a bit.

From those lean years as a West Coast backpacker MC to his discovery by Dr. Dre to his current gig as host of the popular MTV series "Pimp My Ride," Xzibit's career has taken numerous turns.

He has a new album out, dubbed "Full Circle." It's his first release under a new distribution deal he has with Koch Records, through his own record label "Open Bar Entertainment." His latest movie, "Grid Iron Gang," debuted at no. 1 in the box office, and new episodes of "Pimp My Ride" are airing on MTV. Xzibit is a full-fledged triple threat, musician, actor, TV host.

Mr. X-to-the-Z took some time to talk to "The Beat" in anticipation of his Wednesday night show at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz. He talked about the new album, his TV gig and the evolution of his career:

First off, thanks for talking to The Beat.
No, thank you. I appreciate it.

I've been a fan since way back, since the Paparazzi days.
Good looking, man.

Just going back to that time, it's been 10 years that you've been in the game
Yeah, a full decade.

That type of longevity in hip-hop is rare. I'm sure you cherish it.
Yeah, I relish it. It's been an amazing race (laughs).

First things first. The thing the readers want to know abut is “Pimp My Ride.” Can you comment on the success of that show and how long you plan on going with it?
Nobody could have told me that the show as going to be what it was. It was amazing to me that the shit I do on that show, people actually find funny (laughs). Because that's what I do around my house and talk to my friends about and what not.

This show came long after my music career started. It feels like a side of my personality that you don't get to see in my music and videos. And (the show) was kind of like that extra step forward as a natural progression in my career, because it's like I was introduced to broader, different audience, but in a whole different way. It just added a whole new dimension to what I'm already trying to do as an artist. It was an avenue that wasn't there for me that all of a sudden was there it, and it came out all over the place

How many seasons have you been doing the show?
This is our seventh season.

Seventh season? That's incredible.
It's (been so long) because we uploaded two seasons so we could (produce) my record and get it out and tour. So those seasons are debuting now. And we just started again to shoot new episodes for January, so I could go to Europe and tour for Full Circle.

That's cool that MTV allows you to do that.
Don't trip, they're making their money (laughs). That's why they're making it so convenient.

With the success of the show, you've reinvented your image. You were this underground MC, got the big break with Dr. Dre and Aftermath, and now you're the nice guy TV show host who does movies on the side. Does that force you to make any changes when you record? How do balance the two, your image as a rapper and your image as a popular TV show host?

That's the thing, because I'm still an underground rapper. Just because I'm more visible, does that mean that my views and opinions have to change as an artist? No.
I think images can be manipulated, images can be boosted, images can be torn down. First of all, my image has never been a fabrication. How I am as a man is how I am in the public. I have a television career, I have a music career and I have a movie career. They all can compliment each other, but they don't have to control each other. Because you see me on TV being able to relate to my fellow man does not mean I am not going to be the same artist that I was when I stepped into the studio 10 years ago.
You shouldn't look for Pimp My Ride in Full Circle and you shouldn't look for Full Circle in Grid Iron Gang. It's three different things. But I think that hip-hop has the stigma that you can only be one dimensional. It's like "Oh man, if you can make me laugh, than you ain't gonna bust no guns." I don't know (laughs) IIII don't know about that.

Was 8 Mile your acting debut?
My acting debut was in an old movie called The Mix. Me and Dub-C (WC from Westside Connection) robbed a liquor store. It's not one of my most shining moments.

8 mile was the one I remember you from.
Well let's start there then (laughs).

You've gone from that point to co-starring with The Rock in Grid Iron Gang. Is that something that you will pursue, being a working actor?
I would love to do more films, but there is a real lack of strong roles for black men in Hollywood. After coming off a film of “Grid Iron Gang's” magnitude, I don't want to jump into something like “Soul Plane 2” or some shit like that. I would rather wait until everything I'm working on sets the tone, so afterward we'll have a better way to pick something that has some girth to it.

What's next in the chamber as far as acting. When can folks expect to see you on the bigs screen?
Right now, I'm just really focused on the music. I haven't accepted any scripts. I'm pretty sure my film agent isn't happy about that (laughs). I'm an MC, man. I feel good. I just got on the (tour) bus and I've been doing what I have to do

Tell me about the new album and your new label situation. Is this the second album on Koch?
No, it's my first one.

Tell me about it.
It's my sixth album, but it's my first independent record. I own the masters. This is an imprint, because it was going through Open Bar Entertainment/Koch, who is doing the distribution.
It feels great. I had to put a lot of my own money where my mouth was in order to get the video done, in order to get the songs done the way I wanted them. But it's mine and why not? After 10 years of being in the industry and knowing the ups and downs, the pitfalls, having a fair amount of knowledge and experience with that, I think it's time to put that to work. That' where this album came from, knowing that the only way to get everything I want to get from this music and make it how I want to make it without no red tape or bullshit filters, that I had to do it this way.

It's a lesson for folks that want to get in the music biz. Sometimes you have to go a different route. Even established artists such as yourself have to switch it up as your career progresses.

Yeah, if you know, because I'll be damned if I sign an other artist deal. In 2006, you kidding? It took me forever to get out of the first one I got, and they held me to that shit like my life was written on a piece of paper. I'll never do that again, ever.

It's that deep?
Yeah, for real. But I hate when artists have trouble in their careers and they make it everybody's business. Like every problem they have in their life, they talk about it. The public isn't for that. The public wants to hear music. Of course, they want to be able to relate when you're going through your hardships. But, fuck, dude, it's like, my struggles , if it don't have to do directly with the crowd, I'm not going to involve the crowd. Too many rappers do it.

You haven't been back to Santa Cruz in a while?
Yeah, I'm coming out there to tear it down.

Anything to say to the locals?
Just come out, be prepared to hear a little bit of the old, a little bit of the new. And we're going to have some fun.

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Heads Up, 7-UP: Upcoming local hip-hop/punk shows

I had these great plans to start out the week. I was going to interview Xzibit over the weekend and present it as a Q&A teaser for a large feature in Tuesday's paper. No dice.

Then, in the event I didn't get the Xzibit interview, I was going to transcribe an old Jeru Tha Damaja interview I had stockpiled for a rainy day. Of course, I never bothered to check the tape, and when I did, I found out it was an inaudible mess, where only my voice could be heard clearly. Strike two.

So, with no shows to review over the weekend, I will simply list a few upcoming shows this week, as a heads up. And hopefully Xzibit's people will call my people (no ride-pimping involved, sadly).

Wed. Oct. 25 - Para La Gente performs the first of several local shows in support of its ep release, "Hurricane America." Showtime: 9 p.m. E3 Playhouse, 435 Front St. & Cathcart, Downtown Santa Cruz , CA, Cost: Free.

Friday, Oct. 27 - Local rappers AK & Big Spank, Pezy, MIke Dolla and Philthy Rich take the stage at Planet Gemini in Monterey, part of a Halloween house party sponsored by International Music Group and Mix n' Spin Productions. Showtime: 9 p.m. Planet Gemini, 625 Cannery Row, Suite 301, MOnterey. Cost. $8.

Saturday, Oct. 28 - 10/28: Halloween costume party with Wasted Noise,Para La Gente + DJ Mitto. Prizes for best costumes so be sure to dress up. Tickets can be purchased at California Collision, 245 Front St., Salinas. Call 751-9131. Location: American Legion Post 593, 8300 Prunedale Road North in Prunedale . Cost: $10

And Rum & Rebellion has a trio of shows this weekend:

Friday, october 27, at the Gilman Street Project, 924 Gilman Street, Berekeley, with The Achievement, Trainwreck Riders, Genghis Khan. $5, all ages.

Saturday, October 28, at the Edinburgh Castle Pub, 950 Geary St., San Francisco, with Two
Gallants and Trainwreck Riders.

Sunday, October 29, 5 p.m., Thee Parkside, 1600 17th street, San Francisco. with Sunday Twang. Free afternoon show. all ages. about 5 p.m.
.

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Method Man Performs Own Stunts, Rocks the Crowd in Santa Cruz

For a short period of time during the mid-90s, Method Man was the hottest thing going in New York City and, essentially, rap music in general.

This was around the time that he had released his debut album, "Tical," and was busy becoming the unlikely sex symbol and all-purpose darling of the Wu-Tang Clan. He had a solo deal with Def Jam and was in the midst of a highly creative and profitable collaborative venture with another east coast behemoth, Redman. Their partnership would garner, in order, an album, a stoner comedy and a failed television series.

But the Method Man of the mid-90s was an up and comer full of potential for greatness. To some, Method Man didn't fulfill that potential, whether it was a string of lackluster follow up releases (every album after "Tical" managed to be more lackluster than the previous release) or the overexposure (dude almost became a fixture on TRL, posing for pics with the likes of Britney Spears).

Or maybe it was the simple fact that for all of his gritty, underground leanings early on, Method Man always has been and likely always will be a pop star.

So I set up all of this to come to my point: pop star or underground MC who never lived up to the hype, Method Man is a bonafied performer. As he put it, no MC out today works harder to give the fans what they want, and he proved this Friday night in Santa Cruz.

Performing for a packed house at The Catalyst, Method Man was a shotgun blast of energy and charm, holding the crowd in the palm of his hand and then, literally, allowing them to do the same for him. He played his classic joints, he was flanked by OG members of the Wu-Tang Clan, he cooed for the ladies, and even hung from the rafters. It was an impressive, if not unexpected, display of showmanship.

Getting the crowd into it early, Meth performed his older songs first, with joints like "Method Man," "Ice Cream," and "Bring The Pain," getting the crowd early. It was a smart move on his part, as veteran artist with a deep catalogue, he can afford to take such a risk without worrying about running out of material.

But it wasn't just the song selection that got the crowd; the way he prowled around the stage, his voice still booming with the scratchy bellow of a chain-smoker since birth. When he busted out the song "What The Bloodclot," with its chamber music piano keys and distorted bass shifts, it wasn't just the song that got you hype, it was the way Method Man swayed back and forth with the mic in his hand, in the zone, breath control and gusto in tact.

He brought out his fellow clan members for a hype rendition of "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothing to #$%! Wit." Inspektah Deck and Masta Killah ran through their verses, and dozens of Wu-Tang hand signs went into the air.

Meth played the crowd some new stuff that sounded decent enough. When he asked the crowd "How many of y'all bought my new album," a large roar ensued. Judging by the poor album's poor sales, most were either lying or had downloaded it illegally, in my estimation.

Then again, judging by the way the crowd screamed and cheered mightily during his set, I wouldn't be surprised if most indeed had purchased the disc. And in supporting Meth, the rapper kept to his word that he would give the energy right back.

Meth ran into the crowd and performed numerous times, sometimes standing, and other times while being held up during a stage dive. He's a big dude, more than six-feet tall, but the way he surfed on the crowd while rapping was quite a site.

Then, in one of the truly great scenes at the Catalyst this year, Meth ran up on the balcony area, set himself over the railing edge and rapped from the second floor! The crowd went nuts, while dozens of camera phones (mine included) went up into the air to grab a shot. I've never seen anything quite like it.

At the end of his set, Meth cued up the beat to "Tha Rockwiler," the Cypress Hill homage he recorded with Redman. Again in the crowd, he hoisted himself straight up, standing tall, legs stretched, arms to the air, hands displaying the Wu-Tang symbol. It was pretty awesome. The crowd held Meth in the palms of their hands.

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Beef: The Series

It's been a slow news week locally( although I'm going to check out Method Man Friday night, so that should be interesting). I missed the local showcase held Wednesday night in Santa Cruz, which sucked because it's like the third time I've missed it. I even hit up AK on his myspace and messaged him that I would go, only to flake out (If you're reading this, I'm sorry AK. I just had some last minute work stuff that prevented me from going to see your show live).

And so there I was on Wednesday night, bored with some time to kill, when I decided to actually watch some TV. Wouldn't you know it: I managed to catch the new episode of "Beef: The Series" on BET.

For those of you who don't know, the "Beef: The Series" is an extension of the DVD series titled "Beef," produced by QD3, aka Quincy Jones III, the son of Quincy Jones. QD3 has made a career of producing LA rappers like IceCube and Warren G. He's also carved out a niche doing faux documentaries about high-profile street rappers. His DVD about 2Pac, subtitled "Thug Angel," got decent response from fans and the industry, enough for him to get the green light on the Beef series.

In the DVD, "Beef" dissects hip-hop feuds, from high-profile confrontations like 2Pac vs. Biggie to minor squabbles, like D-12 vs. Royce Tha 5-9. The series garnered some controversy when a segment on Eminem vs. Benzino was removed from the third DVD, reportedly because The Source Magazine's production company, which was indirectly owned by Benzino, had signed on as a producer. Couldn't have the boss the subject of the series, especially if it was in an unflattering light, or so the thinking goes.

Now, the television series is a weekly half-hour that focuses on rap feuds, although from all sorts of angles. Wednesday night's episode focused on three beefs: Dame Dash vs. Jay-Z, Kanye West and rappers vs. George Bush and Jacki-O vs. Foxy Brown.

Of the three segments, Jacki-O vs. Foxy Brown represented the only legitimate rapper vs. rapper beef. And it really wasn't much of a beef: to hear Jacki tell it, Foxy showed up at the Miami studio where Jacki was recording one night and started getting indignant. Jacki did what any self-respecting female rapper protecting her turf would do - she knocked Foxy out with the one hitter quitter.

There was one diss song recorded as a result: Jacki-O's "TKO" was another lights out knockout blow that took aim at the Brooklyn femcee Foxy Brown. My favorite line from that joint was something like "You get served back and forth like a tennis ball," or something like that. I never much cared for Jacki-O, a Miami rapper who I felt was trying to come off as a more sultry, sophisticated and vulgar version of another Miami rapper, Trina.

But Jacki's diss track, along with the fact that she didn't bow down to the veteran Foxy, were both signs of a killer instinct that I had no idea she possessed. I probably won't buy a Jacki-O album as a result, but I might turn up her song when I hear it on the radio.

The beef that seemed to possess the most curiosity was the Kanye vs. Bush segment, although it was presented as "Rappers vs. The president." And it only alluded to Kanye's "George Bush don't care about black people" statement in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, circa Sept. 2005; instead it showed a bunch interview clips with the likes of Talib Kweli, stic.man of dead prez, David Banner and even H-town Mexican MC Chingo Bling, who had a hilarious freestyle that ended with "Hey Kanye, Bush don't like Mexican's either!" Classic stuff.

The coolest footage was of Mos Def performing his song "Katrina Clap" in front of Radio City Music Hall at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. The song is a dedication to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, sung over the beat to "Nolia Clap," by Juvenile's UTP crew.

Mos dedicated the song to the victims of Hurricane Katrina on the one-year anniversary of the storm. He performed unannounced on a flat-bed truck, and was later arrested for not having a permit. Nice guerrilla stunt, and it was a reminder that sometimes, hip-hop can be a form or protest art.

The Dame Dash vs. Jay-Z segment seemed cooked, strictly showing Dash's side of the story (in the producer's defense, it seems likely that Jigga wouldn't participate in such a segment given that he has repeatedly denied that there was any friction between him and his former partner in Roc-A-Fella records).

Dame comes off as a scorned partner in some parts, disbelieving friend in others. He doesn't outright diss Jay-Z, but seems more hurt and baffled. This whole segment made Jay seem like a single-minded opportunist working toward getting his own business pursuits off the ground and cutting his ace partner out of the action, which seems somewhat viable.

The only problem with that is it's hard to be sympathetic for Dame Dash, who in every other interview and print article, not to mention his failed BET series "Ultimate Hustler," comes off as a complete asshole. I won't feel any more sympathy for Dame Dash, who plays himself as a black Donald Trump-model, than I would for t he white Donald Trump. Business is business, so get over it already.

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Aesop Rock: The Beat Q & A

A few months back, I had the chance to interview Aesop Rock, in anticipation of his Santa Cruz show in August. It was an interesting conversation, with Aesop sharing some of his personal thoughts; the recently married, 30-year-old rapper moved to the Bay Area this past year and is settling down into married life.
But he's still a beast on the mic, as evidenced by his Santa Cruz show, which was all gritty and chain-smoking cough underground hip-hop. Still, it was cool talking to a dude who sounds like your typical newlywed underground mc who just moved to a new town.
Here's an excerpt from the interview. Enjoy.


You ready to talk man?
I just woke up in time for it (laughs).

I appreciate that man. Thanks for taking the time to talk to The Beat.
Oh, of course. No problem.

Have you performed in Santa Cruz before?
No, I haven't. I've done San Diego, LA, San Francisco, but for some reason I never get to these other California cities. So this is my first time.

It's a different scene out there, more of a surfer vibe. It's cool, though.
Yeah, yeah, that's what I heard.

You moved out to the Bay Area in the last year or so.
That's true

Have you adjusted to that? How was the transition coming from the east coast?
It's pretty good so far. I lived in New York my whole life, so it's definitely a switch up. But so far, it's totally different.

What are the differences?
The weather for one. Right now, it's like 104 in New York, and I'd be fucking dying. It's just weird, like, different ways that people approach other people. It's hard to put into words. Things I never noticed when I was here because I was only out long enough for a show or something. But now that I've been here for along time, people just have a different attitude. It's not a better or a worse attitude, but it's just kind of funny how... when interactions go down it's completely different than they would in New York...

At this point I'm like, I could be kind of anywhere. I just do my work, have my wife and a few friends, that's all I need. When I was younger, I was running around in New York and taking advantage of the city and... I kind of don't do that anymore. Now, I'm just enjoying the weather.

It sounds like you're getting grown (laughs). Are you recording right now in the Bay?
Yep, we're just doing shows a couple times a month. But for the most part, we're just recording, trying to prepare a release for next year.

I wanted to ask you about this children's book with Jeremy Fish, can you break down how that came about?
The project, it's called "The Next Best Thing." Basically, me and Jeremy, and I don't know how familiar you are with his work, but I was familiar with his work before I got here. I own one of his prints. We both have friends in common. He contacted me. He was offered a chance to pitch a cartoon to a television network. He wanted to know if I would do the music and I said "fuck yeah." And then the cartoon went on the backburner, some of the people at the network left. But we just became friends and I was like "I'm moving to San Francisco in a week." I came out here and he was kind of the first person to show me around the city and we got to become pretty good friends. We started talking about other ways to collaborate, we were fans of each other.

The actual idea for the book was... we both feel that kind of like, musicians and visual artists never collaborate enough, or rather to an extent that's kind of cool. A lot of times when you're making a record, and it comes time for the art work, you work on the record for1- 2-3 years, however long it's taken and when it's time to come out you're like "Oh shit, I need some artwork." So by the time it comes out, at the last moment you just kind of whip something up.
We were just trying to go through ways that people in the past have combined art and music, and we brought it back to the 70s. How Disney was making the storybooks of like "Peter and the Dragon," and there would be a little book and in the back, it's a 7-inch record. You put on the record and you hear the sound effects to turn the page, the little chimes...it seemed like the perfect marriage for visual art and making some music.

I'm not familiar with Jeremy's work, but I am familiar with yours, and the thought of an Aesop Rock children's book seems so off the wall.
The idea was taken from these Disney books that were children's books...It's not necessarily geared towards the youngest audience. We sort of put an adult take on these children's books.


So it's kind of tongue in cheek?
It's not tongue and cheek. It's the format of a children's' book, but the drawings in it are real cartoony. Jeremy's work has really, kind of cartoony elements to it, but it also has some evil elements to it. It will be skulls mixed with some kind of weird, cuddly, funny animals. It's got this funny give and take, when you look at it first it's like a children's book, but you look further into it its got some aspects that are not for kids. It's adult content and things that you wouldn't let your kids read.

What is the story about?
It's our version of... we're trying to sell a cure for creative block, writer's block. Or creative block if you're an artist and you can't think of something to draw (laughs). Like kind of a generalized thing, because we talked about it, sometimes we get writer's block and he said sometimes I do this and I said sometimes I do this, and it was this little kind of strange thing. It's hard to explain, but basically, it's our cure for writer's block.

Is there a central character?
Yeah, there's a central character, but he's unnamed. It's just kind of in the song, I'm saying "I", I'm saying "You." It just can be any person who's an artist or a musician who does something creative.

When you're collaborating with someone like that, where you're coming from music angle and Jeremy's coming from visual art angle, how do you go about doing that? Do you guys shoot ideas back and forth? How did that work?
That's actually one of the reasons I ended up being happier with this project than I thought I would be because it really was a collaboration. It wasn't like I gave him a song and he drew a song or he drew a bunch of pictures and I made a song for it. We came up with the idea, of course, through a couple of sitdowns, and I was like, "alright." I was going out to write four bars of the lines, or eight bars of the lines, something equal to maybe 2 pages of pictures. And then I would send them to him and say, "This is where I'm at right now," and he would say, "This is cool" and "Yeah, I like this," and he would start drawing based on that.
As I was writing my part I would kind of hand it off to him and go through the text, go through the lyrics with him. He would kind of direct things, and we definitely went back and forth over the course of the writing of this four-minute song or whatever. It was really like a true collaboration, as opposed to you doing your half and me doing my half, you know what I mean. We did consult with each other the whole way.

The new record, any ideas on the name of the album, what stuff you're hoping to address with the record?
I don't have a title, and all of the songs I have don't have the right titles on them. I have got seven or eight songs that are keepers at this point. I'm just trying to be really picky about what I keep.

There's a bunch of stories on it, like more story lines than I ever did. At the risk of sounding corny, it's a little reflective. Not reflective, but there's definitely stuff that takes place that's kind of a just fun shit I did in high school and junior high school, that kind of stuff. There is this song that's almost like a "Children's Story" kind of song. Just stuff that kind of is just about growing up from age 1 to age 30, where I am now. It's going to be different songs that have to do with every couple years of your life kind of thing.
There's definitely more stories. I was never battle oriented, but when I did my kind of battle shit, I did my version of battle. There's kind of less of that and more of my stories that paint a scene, or kind of doing "This is what the city was like"...Just different characters and things like that. I don't know, I'm just trying to get real visual and really kind of... Originally I was going to do all stories, but I decided I couldn't' do all stories...

Has the change of your environment and your move west been reflected in your music
I'm sure people will say it will, because this definitely doesn't sound like anything I've done. And there's probably stuff on there that does sound like stuff I've done. I think people will be like "He moved to California, that's why he made this song." But I don't know. I tend to think that everything changes all the time anyway...It's not like I'm coming out with some G-Funk record or something. Your environment reflects what you do.

Any dream collabos?
There are some(pauses) actually, not really. If I think somebody is like a hero to me, I probably wouldn't want to collaborate. I'd rather them just maintain a hero. Be a hero in my eyes, because it's all too often you take someone who's the illest or that you look up to and then you meet them and it turns out they're an asshole (laughs).
Collaborations for me is I like to go with people that I know. I try and pick people that everyone's familiar with. I obviously have heroes from the underground all the way up to the top. But I don't think that I'd ever be the guy that pulls Redman aside and pays him a few g's to kick a verse or something. I want him to just be a hero.

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Boom Boom Kid at The Black Box Cabaret

I hosted the Boom Boom Kid show Thursday night at CSU-Monterey Bay. It was a total last minute thing, for a show whose headliner was not supposed to even be there (bureaucratic red tape prevented the university from advertising that Boom Boom Kid, on tour in the U.S. on a non-work visa, was performing on campus).

So it's weird that I'm writing this entry for a number of reasons: I was an active event participant, an automatic conflict of interest from an objective journalistic standpoint; I didn't take any notes, which prevented me from taking down set lists or quoting lyrics; and then there's the whole publicity gag order, which I don't even want to get into.

But Thursday night's show was noteworthy for a number of reasons: Boom Boom Kid is an Argentinian punk rock madman who has forged a solid bond with local bands like Los Dryheavers and La Plebe, whose former guitarist now fronts BBK's U.S. touring band. He opened a 30-plus city U.S. tour in Salinas, at punk rock haven La Perla Restaurant and
Thursday's show was the second of a long-winding thrash through Norte America.

In person, he is a bit bewildering: 5-foot-2 inches in heals, with a bleached mop of hair that may or may not be dreadlocks. Either way, you get the sense that dude just doesn't wash his hair. Yet there's something graceful about his presence, due in part to the easy going nature he seems to possess.

At the Black Box show, BBK was a mix of punk rawness and elaborate showman. He squealed and pranced without any sense of irony, yet managed to avoid coming off like an ass. And his music was exciting: he could pull off straight forward Spanish punk and then ease back into a thrashing Ritchi Valens cover (or at least I think it was Valens, I didn't take a notebook so I'm going off of memory).

But it was the theatrics that really did it. At one point, he busted out a boogie board, threw it into the crowd, then jumped on top while the gaggle of fans held him high, triumphantly. He struck a pose and held his balance. You couldn't help but cheer.

BBK brought with him an old 45-player, one of those portable ones that look like it's about a million years old. I joked that it was an "Argentinian iPod." He played dance music and salsa and punk; one of the record sleeves was for New Kids on the Block. Somehow, it all made sense.

Opening act Los Dryheavers kicked off their usual mix of blue-collar punk. These guys are serious working class punkeros, performing each song with the diligence of a unionized construction team. I've mentioned them in past blogs, but I will have to do a complete review of their shows sometime in the future. In the meantime, check out their myspace page at www.myspace.com/losdryheavers.

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Woodpile: Racist or Radical?

Hip-hop just gets more and more strange.

Take this story from the LA Times. Rap Group Woodpile is an Arizona-based thug rap outfit who rep hard for the White Pride prison gang The Woods (short for peckerwoods). Woodpile consists of three white rappers, Diesoul Ether Bunny, Crisis and Critical.

I have never heard their music, so it's hard to say what they truly represent, but it just seems odd. The LA Times writer puts it:

The three burly, skin-headed members of the hip-hop group Woodpile want a bigger audience, but they know the odds are long.
They have no hope of cracking mainstream radio or MTV with songs like "They Hate Us" or "I'm a Wood," in which they rap menacingly about blasting enemies with shotguns. Further limiting their commercial prospects, their August album, "The Streets Will Never Be the Same," boasts of the group's affiliation with the Woods, a white power prison gang.

The band has since admonished some of the reporter's facts, saying the Woods, and in essence, Woodpile, are a "White Pride" outfit, not a white power group. They are not racist and, in fact, belong to a rap label owned by an African-American rap artist (more on that in a second).

In the story, the writer states that the group is in opposition to white power prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood and the Nazi Lowriders. On the group's myspacepage (www.myspace.com/woodpile), the group says they are indeed not against those groups, claiming "We're down for all the (pecker)woods." Say what?

And if the idea of a white pride rap group marketing to white prison gangs isn't enough to furrow your brow, here comes the kicker: the group is signed to West Coast Mafia Records, owned by Sacramento rap legend C-Bo, a black man.

C-Bo is riding hard for these guys, promoting them on his label's and personal myspace page, as well as performing a short list of tour dates with the group.

Now, I love C-Bo. His album "Tales From the Crypt" is one of those West Coast gangsta classics that anyone, from street thug to college frat boy, can appreciate. He's been in legal battles for writing rap lyrics, recorded music with the late great 2Pac, and helped Sacramento maintain a foothold in the West Coast rap market. But this is just crazy.

The group is marketing to prisoners, which is nothing new. Groups like Darkroom Familia and the rapper X-Raided have been doing this since the 1990s (in the case of X-Raided, he recorded music while locked up at Salinas Valley State Prison, a maximum security institution). And rappers with penitentiary credentials have been a hot commodity, from Mac Dre to Tony Yayo to Pimp C. Anticipating an artist's album upon his or her return from prison has become a marketing ploy unto itself.

It's just a bit odd to me that a respected rapper like C-Bo would go out on a limb to promote a group that could be mistaken as racial instigators, in this case the dangerous ground that the so-called "White Pride" movement these guys are promoting. I have no clue as to the racial politics the group or the gang represent, but it seems risky nonetheless.

Even though these guys are obviously not skinheads or rapping racist lyrics, how hard would it be for someone, say a young white kid uncertain about his own racial ideology, to jump to that sort of conclusion. Or worse, this violent music could become the anthem for racists who mistakenly take their music as white superiority pabulum. It's a risky endeavor either way.

Of course, I have to listen to the music before I draw any conclusions. And I'm convinced that C-Bo is a smart enough guy to consider all of this and in fact, use the controversy to his advantage. His marketing and promotional strategy have helped him become CEO of his own record company, with an office in Beverly Hills to boot. That's nothing to turn your nose at.

It will be interesting to see where this prison marketing campaign, and the group Woodpile itself, winds up. I hope C-Bo knows what he's doing.

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The Death of 2Pac: 10 Years Later

It's been 10 years since the murder of Tupac Amaru Shakur, the West Coast rap legend who was gunned down on the Las Vegas strip Sept. 7, 1996. He died six days later on Sept. 13, a violent end to a brilliantly flawed artist whose star seemed to loom larger in death than it did in life.

In fact, Tupac's death seemed to usher in a scary trend of the posthemous rap artist as marketing tool. While he was certainly a star in his own right while he was alive, his death lionized his legacy. Dead at 25, Tupac became a legend, and a profitable one at that.

Since his death, dozens of albums, most of them unauthorized, have been released under his name. The handful of official releases have routinely debuted in the top 10 album charts, and Tupac has wedged his way into the top 10 all-time profitable dead celebrities list (joining the likes of Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Bob Marley). In his death, Tupac became the first official hip-hop icon, a brand name whose image along with his art has achieved broad mainstream public appeal.

At the same time, Tupac's death brought out possibly one of the worst practices in hip-hop marketing: the posthumous album. Albums released by dead rappers have become a cottage industry within itself, beginning with 2Pac's "Makaveli - Don Killumaniti: The 7 Day Theory," and then followed closely by The Notorious BIG, who was gunned down in March 1997, six months after Tupac's death.

Since those dark days in hip-hop, posthumous albums, street records, mixtapes and even collaborations amongst dead rappers post mortem, have been released. Big L, Big Pun, Mac Dre, Eazy-E and Souljah Slim have all had successful record releases in the afterlife.

In the song "We Gon Make It," New York MC Jadakiss sums it up by saying "You know dead rappers get better promotion." For all of Tupac's cryptic posturing on his last official release (Tupac's "Makaveli" album was played up as foreshadowing the rapper's own staged death), the album's success - it was a multi-platinum record - was due in large part to his recent killing. This gave record companies the misguided conception that murder was a form of "keeping it real," and dead artists could turn a profit.

Rappers now use this as a means of gaining public acceptance, notoriety and for the achievement of record sales. 50 Cent's much ado'd mantra of "I got shot 9 times" earned him 5-times platinum sales. Songs dedicated to dead homies (Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You") have become number one hits. In short, violent and unnatural death, and the allusion to it, have become a marketing scheme in rap music.

And it's silly to think that this only happens in hip-hop; Bob Marley was shot during heated social times in Kingstone, Jamaica, his wife Rita Marley took a bullet to the head; African musician Fela Kuti had his family murdered, his mother thrown from a second story window, by racist African police. Both artists achieved iconic status post mortem, although it was due in part to their pursuit of social justice and equality through music and political action.

But in hip-hop, 10 years after the death of its most controversial figure, it seems that little has been learned from Tupac's death. Just this year, Detroit MC Proof and Houston veteran Hawk were killed by gunfire. Busta Rhymes' bodyguard was murdered at a video shoot attended by dozens of rap artists. The cycle continues.

And likely, it will stay that way, until someone heeds the Tupac lyric "Damn a n#@$! tired of feeling sad/I'm tired of putting in work/I'm tired of cryin while watching my homies leave the earth."

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Win Tickets to meet and greet Teddy Geiger and Lifehouse

Teddy Geiger and Lifehouse are performing Sept. 29 in Monterey. To be honest, I know very little about either group.

But that doesn't mean I can't hook it up for Monterey County fans who want to meet the band in person.

That's why I'm holding a contest. School me on the finer aspects of each act. Tell me what makes them so good or , dare I say, great. And do it with brevity - 100 words or less. Your words could win you a chance to meet either Lifehouse or Teddy Geiger.


So, here's the deal: The Monterey County fan who can give me the best description of each act's work, in 100 words or less, wins a prize: two passes to the concert, along with a chance to meet and greet each act before the show.

All entries will be accepted by e-mail only. Send your entries to mcabrera@montereyherald.com. Contestants can enter as many times as they want, but only one prize will be awarded per contestant. Deadline is 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26.

To whit:

Lifehouse is a multi platinum selling rock band, who have number one hits and a large following. I know almost nothing about them. Likewise, I'm pretty clueless about Teddy Geiger. I've been reading up on him, and from what I can tell, he's an up and comer who was featured on the short-lived CBS drama "Love Monkey." The show was cancelled by the television network, but briefly revived by VH1 (the cable network aired the entire first season).

Tell me what makes them great, and one lucky Lifehouse fan will get to take a friend to meet the band and watch them perform Sept. 29 at Monterey Fairgrounds (tickets are still available at ticketmaster.com, or the Fairgrounds box office, 372-5863). Likewise, one lucky Geiger fan who gives me the best short essay on why he is such a good performer wins two passes to the concert, along with a chance to meet the artist before the show.

Good luck, and may the best fan win. Visit "The Beat" for updates as the week progresses.

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Live: Rum & Rebellion's Last Salinas Show

There was a moment last week during Rum & Rebellion's show, when the Salinas cow-punk outfit let the crowd sing its songs for them.
Lead singer George Sanchez stepped away from the microphone and started singing to noone in particular, as the crowd picked up baton and started singing along. It was one of those moments when a band finds its stride with the crowd, a fleeting occurance when artists work becomes a rallying call.
Rum & Rebellion played, potentially, it's final show in Salinas on Friday night at La Perla Restaurant. I say potentially because while Sanchez is leaving the area, two of its other members, drummer Scott McDonald and bassist Mark, are staying put in the Salad Bowl.
And so, Friday night's show was attended by a small throng of die-hards, myself included, giving the band one last big send-off. Tight as ever, the trio ran through its set with workman-like efficiency. Sanchez name checked all of the local bands the group has shared bills with, including openers The Achievement.
The songs sounded crisp, especially so in a tricky venue like La Perla, where the sound bounces everywhere and unknowing bands can play ear-piercing sets if their amps are turned up too high.
And then there were the moments for the friends/fans. Towards the end, the band grooved through "This Sin," a bluesy-ballad of adultery that was recorded as a duet between Sanchez and his SF homegirl Sunny. Again, the group let the crowd take over, which by this point had circled around the band like a campfire sing-along. Some in the audience even attempted to hit the whistful high notes that Sunny effortlessly achieved on record (most to no avail, on the crowd's part). The band loved every second of it.
And so it was, a quiet ending to a curious era in Salinas cowpunk. Rum & Rebellion will play some dates next month in the SF Bay. There's talk of a record release, time-willing, in the distant future.
But for friends/fans of the band, there will always be the moments, like Friday, when everyone gets to sing along and just take stock of it all.

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'The Beat's' review of Idlewild

"Idlewild" is a movie for Outkast fans who will recognize every song and reference to their music within the film. But that doesn't mean it successfully translates the group's musical talent to the screen.
The movie is a beautifully rendered but sometimes poorly fleshed out adaptation of the duo's last album, "Speakerboxx/The Love Below." A double disc of solo offerings from group members Big Boi and Andre 3000, it was packaged as a group album even though each disc could have stood alone as a solo effort.
The movie takes elements and, in some cases, whole songs from the album and structures parts of the narrative around the song. The movie itself is about a fictional small town in Georgia called "Idlewild," where Rooster (Big Boi) runs a speakeasy called "Church." Rooster hires his childhood running mate Percy (Andre 3000) to play piano.
Rooster is a renaissance man of sorts, a bootlegger and club manager and ladies man who is the resident singing star at "Church." He's also a family man who can't quite keep his promises to his wife and five kids.
Percy, meanwhile, is the son of a mortician who is the opposite of Rooster. An introvert who isn't above throwing up while on stage, Percy wouldn't have much ground to stand on were it not for his homeboy Rooster.
Percy and Rooster make a great team onstage, with Percy writing the songs and Rooster taking the lead. Songs like "Bow Tie" and "Throw Your Neck Out" get great visual treatment from director Bryan Barber, who turns the rap songs into swinging prohibition-era dance numbers. Big Boi's music works well on screen.
Things get complicated when a goon named Trumpy takes over the club. Played with particular menace by Terance Howard, Trumpy keeps Rooster on edge, while Percy deals with a brooding father and his newfound love interest Angel.
The story stutters between music numbers and an uneven plot. Howard starts off great, but runs out of things to do by the middle of the movie. And Percy's character is bogged down with a bit too much pretense that takes too long to develop. By the time you figure out the reasons for his depression, you pretty much don't care.
In fact, it's Andre 3000's performance as a whole that kills the movie's momentum, surprising when you consider that Andre was supposed to be the character of the group. His turn as Percy is on the surface brooding, but so stilted that he's almost completely unengaging. His romance with Angel creates no real spark and the musical numbers are boring. It isn't until the end, when Percy does a big band routine, that you get any sense of life from Andre 3000.
In contrast, Big Boi carries the movie with both swagger and vulnerability. Although his pimp with a conscience routine falls short at times, it's not for lack of trying. Rooster is a fully realized character, and proves to be a better actor than his counterpart.
In all, Idlewild is a hit or miss at best. Visually, it's a stylistically stunning update of the musical set to a hip-hop groove. But that doesn't save it from being a clunker of a movie that doesn't live up to all of its, and the groups, promise.

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Rock The Bells Festival with Wu-Tang Clan, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, De La Soul and Redman

I attended Sunday's Rock the Bells concert strictly for leisure purposes. I made no attempt to get press passes or set up artist interviews.

I wanted to enjoy the show without the hassle of bringing along a notepad and scribbling down every damm thing that I saw (honest, this show review gig is fun, but you look mad nerdy when you're in a dark club taking notes).

But the show was good. Damn good. Too good to pass up talking about in my little blog space.

For those of you that don't know, Rock The Bells festival has turned into an annual event in California, in it's fourth year. Hosted by Guerrilla Union, it has turned into one of the most exciting hip-hop festivals in the country. An all-day event, the artists on the lineup were some of myf avorites: De La Soul, Black Star, Wu-Tang Clan, Heiroglyphics, Zion-I, Redman.

I joked that they should have changed the name to "Marc The Bells."

So, since I didn't take any notes, I'll just filter through some of the highlights from my day. Next year, I will go ahead and hit up those publicists for a more in-depth look.

- We got to the show at 2 p.m. (four hours late) and left at approximately 9 p.m. (about a half-hour early). We still managed to see seven hours of non-stop music, which was pretty good for the $40 ticket price.

- Got to the venue in time to catch Immortal Technique, the Harlem rapper who reps for Latinos to the fullest. He was flanked by members of the Watsonville and So-Cal Brown Berets. It was pretty wild to see the Berets khaki'd up and passing out literature/fliers. Que Viva La Raza!

- De La came on stage and just absolutely wrecked it! I've seen them a few times before, but this time, they pulled out all of the stops. Brought out Dres from Black Sheep and Phife from A Tribe Called Quest (although I was looking around for Q-Tip. Oh well, I guess I'll have to track them down when they perform in Berkeley next month).
De La did this freeze tag thing at the end of their set. They performed the song "RocKokaine Flow" and at the part where the beat breaks down into a stuttered crescendo, they froze on stage in tune with the beat. They repeated this three times, each one building on the momentum of the last. It was some nice showmanship on their part.

- Living Legends came on and were just okay. Probably the only let down of the night (for me, at least). Murs rocked a nice live set to open up, but their music was just too slow. On a big stage like the Pavillion, you need extra-hype music. I give them props for doing their thing, but next year, they might want to shorten up their set by only doing portions of songs instead of running through the whole thing (their set dragged a bit due to some songs that lasted 4 or 5 minutes). They all looked good on stage together.

- Redman did a hyper active set, lots of funk tracks and Red just sounded great through the large sound system.

- Talib Kweli came out and got the crowd the loudest to that point. He brought Dave Chappelle out during his set. Chappelle grabbed the mic for a quick second and yelled "Hyphy, Bitches!" to uproarious laughter.
Kweli seemed to lose steam for the Black Star portion of his set. Joined by Mos Def, Kweli seemed reserved, almost holding back. He's on the road a lot, especially for a solo rapper, so I imagine he was trying to pace himself. It kind of took away from the Black Star set, but Mos made up for his partner's lax delivery.
Mos shined like a superstar. He played beats from his new album, titled "Tru3 Magic." He sang a lot, told everyone he wasn't doing interviews with hip-hop magazines or tv shows (he didn't give a reason as to why). He performed songs from both of his solo albums, and during "Ms. Fat Booty," he flipped from Gregory Isaac's "If I can't Have You," to a dubbed out rendition of "Bonita Applebum" back into his song. His DJ also did a nice break-beat set, mixing breaks from some of the artists of the night. Mos sang the Fat Lip verse from the Pharcyde's song "Passin' Me By." He ended his night with "Umi Says," which got everyone to singing.

- Wu-Tang finished up with a rowdy set, but had to deal with sound problems all night. Capadonna's mic was turned down for both of the songs he performed. Method Man got he crowd the most hype when he ran through the length of the floor seats. The gave a tribute to ODB, inviting his mom on stage. They followed this up with a raunchy version of Ghostface's "Cher Chez Le Ghost."
Ghost killed it, along with Raekwon, on songs like "Ice Cream" and "Incarcerated Scarfaces." There was only one real problem: The RZA was nowhere to be found. It wasn't a full clan reunion, but it'll have to do for this year.

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Aesop Rock performs live in Santa Cruz

Aesop Rock may be one of the most perplexing MC's going these days.
A white rapper from New York, his skinny frame, shaggy do and bug eyes betray any sense that he's a rapper's rapper, that flip title bestowed upon wordy rap artists heralded by their ilk. Pharoahe Monch is sometimes lauded as an underground rapper's rapper. Ditto for Eminem in mainstream circles.
But Aesop's stream of consciousness rhyme patterns, filled with stark imagery and observation, has brought him critical acclaim amongst indy rap and rock critics. The lead singer of indy rock group The Mountain Goats is down with Aesop. Ditto for rappers like Zion I and Slug of Atmosphere.
So it was intriguing to see how his wordy rhyme play would translate on stage. Performing his first ever gig in Santa Cruz, Aesop Rock's Thursday night show at The Catalyst brought out a crowd of curiousity seekers and fankids from as far as the San Francisco Bay Area. Aesop recently moved to San Francisco with is wife, the newlyweds escaping babylon for the left coast.
He opened up to th strains of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodo Chile" before DJ Big Wiz switched it up to the Masta Ace classic "Born to Roll." It made ironic sense for Aesop to flip the original song's "Brainiac dumb-dumbs/Bust the scientifical" line into a nerd rap chorus line.
Aesop was flanked by Rob Sonic, a robust rapper (dude was BIG) who did his best to keep pace with Aesop. I must admit, I don't know that much of Aesop's catalogue (the only CD I own of his is "Bazooka Tooth" and that got stolen from my car). His first song, with the chorus chant "I Alone" had one of the best lines I've heard at a live hip-hop show this year: "If the Revolution ain't gonna be televised, than fuck, I probably missed it."
His voice, a deep, twangy toad's belch that is awkwardly on-key on record, transferred well on stage. The muffled sound added some smokey depth to the backing music, giving it a gutter NYC feel that I hadn't noticed in his music before. And his DJ Big Wiz was just murdering it, flipping from LL's "Booming System" too A Tribe Called Quest's "Hot Sex (On a Platter)" with seamless mixing.
My favorite Aesop jam, "NY Electric" came on about four songs into the set. It's a slumping, slow-rolling tidal wave of a track, molasses-thick bass sopped up by Aesop's equally chunky vocals. The slow burner packed a powerful punch live, and I was impressed at how well his multi-syllabic rhyme patterns, especially the hooks, worked in performance.
The opening act, an MC named Mr. Sayre, had the crowd about 50/50 in favor of his performance. At his peak, he managed to come off as confident and human, giving props to his girl in a touching display of b-boy love. His set-ending acapella was a nice show-stopper, sealing the deal with an abundance of heart.
A nice touch was his DJ's grunge-rock set, mixing Nirvana and Led Zepplin, among other hard-rock tracks, to the delight of the SC crowd. I don't know where this guy comes from or what material he has out there, but Sayre showed a lot of promise.

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How Come Nobody is Talking about the New Outkast?

I will review this movie once it comes out in theatres

I finally got around to watching the BET Awards last night (I was about 50/50 in my predictions). The last awards presenters of the night were rappers Big Boi and Andre 3000 of Outkast.

'Kast have been and always will be one of my favorite music acts, period. Their innovation has always been the key to their success, a rarity in this sometimes contrived and copycat musical artform called hip-hop.

When everyone else was gangsta in the early to mid-90s, they were rapping about aliens and Cadillacs, and Andre was wearing a turban.

In the late 90s, everyone else in rap was flossed out and rapping in shiny suits with bottles of crystal in hand. 'Kast rapped about civil rights leader Rosa Parks and Andre was rocking silver wigs and shoulder pads.

When the game switched to players and pimps and hustlas in the Y2k-plus, 'Kast got to redefining black rock and soul music and Andre was dressing like a prohibition-era Southern gentleman/barbershop quartet singer, or something like that.

Actually,I'd be remiss in trying to define Andre's style at all.

So, anyways, they were on the BET Awards announcing the video of the year, and Andre jokingly announced the winner as "Idlewild." With perfect comedic timing, Andre uttered "Nah, we're just playing," and they let it be known that the movie and soundtrack would be dropping in late-August.

That's right, 'Kast is releasing a movie and an album, both reportedly titled "Idlewild," or some variation of that name.

I've heard the first singles, Big Boi's "Morris Brown" and Andre's "Idlewild Blues," seperate songs released at the same time.

The songs make good use of each MC's strengths: "Morris Brown" bops along with a marching band drum line and horns, while Big Boi just settles into the groove as "D-A-double-D-Y Fat Sacks." I love rap songs that use marching bands (like Trick Daddy's "Shut Up" and TI's "Bring Em Out"). More rappers should use this sound.

"Idlewild Blues" is a straight up blues song with a thick drum track underneath. Andre sings with a little more authority than I've noticed, compared to his past singing efforts. It's definitely a different feel from the Big Boi single.

The release of two separate, solo singles is the same strategy they incorporated with their last album(s), "The Love Below/Speakerboxx." That effort was a double-disc that could have worked as separate, stand -alone projects. This time, they promise to release a cohesive album as a unit.

The one song I've heard featuring both rappers is called "Mighty O." It's a synth-driven, foot-stomping, hip-hop blues banger. Andre actually raps, which is a relief (I can't say I'm a big fan of his Prince-style falsetto). Big Boi does his usual pimp strut flow, and all seems well on the planet Stankonia.

But it's weird that less than a month before possibly their riskiest release (and that's saying a lot given the experimental vibe of their last album) I haven't seen a whole lot of public anticipation.

No big ads on TV or radio. No magazine covers. No posters at record stores. I have only seen the movie poster once, and that was a few weeks back. When they announced "Idlewild" on the awards, my friend turned to me and asked "What's that?" When I told him that it was their movie/soundtrack, he looked perplexed.

It sometimes takes a minute for the hype machine behind big releases to get going,so in two weeks this post could be a moot point. At the same time, this is Outkast. Everyone should be talking about their upcoming release like now.

I wonder if the surprise success of "The Love Below/Speakerboxx" prevents them from really being able to sneak up on people with a release. In other words: the public feels like they've already seen the group at it's riskiest, so nothing will be quite surprising anymore.

So, given all of their past non-conventional approaches, maybe the Outkast schtick has run it's course. We expect them to be different and envelope-pushing and brilliant. We don't need to hype them up because they're all but guranteed to deliver.

I'm probably wrong in all of this, but it's still interesting that a group whose career has been defined by the art of mystery and intrigue may have run out of surprises for its audience. Regardless, I'm still eager to see what they come up with this time around.

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Ms. Lauryn Hill in SC

This is the Lauryn Hill I choose to remember, not the alien clone currently performing at a club near you

I didn't go to see Ms. Lauryn Hill in Santa Cruz on July 15. I couldn't go due to personal reasons, but in reality I couldn't bear to watch.

Press credentials were a no go. "Ms. Hill has asked that no press be put on the guest list," read the e-mail response. The booking agent was apologetic, but it's understandable. I was more bugged out that he referred to her in the e-mail as Ms. Hill (I've read stories that she insists on being called this by everyone; the marquee outside The Catalyst, where she performed, read "Ms. Lauryn Hill").

And so it wasn't meant to be. I didn't have the $50 to spare a ticket, and aside from that, a prior engagement prevented me from commiting to the one-off show even if I did come out the pocket.

But really, it was the apprehension from a previous show, about five years ago that left me quite traumatized (I'll get to this in a minute). The memory of that debacle prevented me from putting aside everything, plunking down half a c-note and watching one of my former idols give a surprise performance in Santa Cruz, of all places.

Performing in SC made sense. The grandfather of Hill's children, the late great Bob Marley - Hill has three kids from Marley's son, Khymani (edit: a more informed reader corrected me on this point; Hill has four sons from Rohan Marley; no excuses, my bad, y'all) used to visit SC when he toured the states. Prior to the SC shows, Hill did two spots in San Francisco, also last-minute dates in a small venue.

San Jose Mercury News music writer Brad Kava gave glowing review of the show. You can read all about it here.As good a writer as Kava is, I don't know him personally, so I can't say I'm with him on the account. His review reads like someone who is viewing Hill from a differed point of view. His is the view of someone who is only semi-acquainted with hip-hop and, more importantly, the impact Hill had on the culture.

My boy Demone, a homie from San Jose who knows what hip-hop tastes like, gave me the real run down.

"Dude, it sucked," he told me over the phone. I believe him.

He reported, much like Kava, that Hill was two hours late, pissing off the crowd to no end. There was no opening act, no dj, just a bunch of fans sitting around, waiting for the performance of a lifetime.

When she did come out, she was directing the band like they were practicing. Demone described the sound as "ska versions" of her music. That does not sound good to me at all.

And then, she veered off into foreign territory. She did a rendition of "Do You Know The Way to San Jose." Demone left at that point.

"I couldn't stand for it anymore," he said.

Which brings me to my last experience with Hill, five years ago, during the Smoking Grooves Tour. Hill was one of the co-headliners. There was a band set up and it looked like she might do some live stuff.

I was hype. Hill was my favorite MC at that time. Note, not female MC, or east coast mc, but MC period. I just thought she was the best at her craft in the whole entire world.

Then, she came on stage carrying a guitar. And she started playing and singing. For 45 minutes.

It was agonizing.

They say for most artists, performing is like therapy, only cheaper. Hill exercised her demons, playing the same four chords while shrieking at the top of her lungs about her poor sap life and love dramas.

It wasn't that the singing was bad, or that she didn't know the chords. It was the fact that she felt she could get away with doing some half-finished acoustic songs and her true fans wouldn't realize what was going on. It was the fact that she thought people wouldn't notice that none of the music had any sort of transition. I can't play a guitar note to save my life, but I can tell when someone is strumming the same chord for an hour.

What really got to me was that the crowd ate it up. It was a mostly white, college age audience. They cheered for her like she was playing something new and exciting. I knew better.

My opinion on Ms. Hill was forever jilted.

So hearing my homie's unsavory review made me glad I didn't waste my money to watch my former favorite MC fall further from grace. The artist formerly known as Lauryn Hill is all but dead to me. I just can't bear to watch it.

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Live: Lateef Tha Truthspeaker at Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz

True hip-hop (if there is such a thing) exists on the fringe, dangling by a string from the thread of commercialism that confounds purist whack jobs like myself. It's not quite as archaic or maligned as punk rock, but it's not all that far off either.

The one thing that will constantly remind me of how great it can be is small shows that rock when you least expect it. Take Thursday night's show at Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz, where Lateef the Truth Speaker actually lived up to his billing.

Lateef is a member of the SoleSides/Quannum crew, the Bay Area collective that started out at UC-Davis and wound up taking over Nor-Cal hip-hop during the late 90s. Blackalicious, Latyryx (of which Lateef was a member) and most famously, DJ Shadow helmed this movement, which was incorrectly pegged as avant-garde hip-hop when in fact it was more throwback rap: dope lyrics and dope beats you could move to.

Lateef''s contribution to this movement was his non-stop, stream-of-consciousness flow that was similar to pouring liquid from a pitcher, the more it went, the more it built up in the cup, until you wound up with a full glass brimming with substance. On Thursday, he managed to translate his recorded content to the stage, inspiring a small but enthusiastic crowd.

Moe's Alley is one of my favorite venues, really small and cozy with decent sound. The place doesn't get too packed, so you can move around pretty effortlessly and get a drink at the bar without having to wedge your way through a pack of people.

Opening act The Serendipity Project gave a stellar performance, their mix of live funk and hip-hop getting better with age. I got there in time to watch a freestyle-jam that lasted a little over 20 minutes.

The group has added two female singers since I last saw them about a year and a half ago. My favorite member is the bassist, this tall, mohawk-sporting wild man who goes ape shit every time he's performing. He was wearing an astronaut jump suit, which was totally odd and cool. Sample the funk at www.serendipityproject.com.

Lateef came through with a DJ and nothing else, displaying the runaway train flow over the 'Apache' breakbeat. This moved right into 'Lester Hayes,' the club-banger from the Maroons album (Lateef also belongs to Maroons, another off-shoot group within the Quannum fold).

DJ E Da Boss was completely in sync with Lateef, seamlessly blending the beat from Kanye West's "Heard 'em Say" during the opening number. Lateef showed true command on the mic while maintaining his smoothness. It would be a foreshadowing of the night's performance.

Most hip-hop shows are pretty standard: throw ya hands in the air, say yeah, DJ scratch, cue the next song. Lateef stuck to the basics, but still managed to keep it fresh with some old fashioned charisma and enthusiasm. There were probably as many people there on Thursday as there were at the Fatlip concert I had attended the previous week, which is to say there weren't that many people. But that didn't matter one bit. Lateef proved one thing on Thursday, it's not the size of the crowd, it's the size of the crowd's enthusiasm.

And so when he ran through the typical "Make some Noise" routine that all rappers attempt during live shows, he did so without falling into cliche. Demanding that everyone use their energy from a long week, whether it was a crappy job or a mean boss or a messed up love relationship, Lateef summoned everyone's inner spirit, and the outpouring of crowd noise and excitement betrayed the small numbers. That's how you rock a show.

Songs like "Side to Side," and "Back to the Essence," his duets with Blackalicious, as well as "Top Rankin'" off the Quannum Spectrum album, displayed a depth of catalogue. But it was my personal fav, "Lady Don't Tek No Mess," that showed a new side to Tha Truthspeaker.

The song, which uses elements from Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and Grand Master Flash's "The Message," is a silky, sultry ode to that girl. The ladies started grinding, and I realized for the first time that Lateef might be Quannum's unofficial sex symbol. The raspy flow, the slightly off-key singing, the green eyes. This guy can get the ladies on the dance floor.

"Lady Don't..." also has one of my favorite lines in any song, talking about his girl and how much people lover her, he sings "Little kids wanna jump in your lap/Girl I wanna do that myself." I get a smile on my face every time I hear that one.

Lateef ended the night on the political tip, the song "If" questioning the government's sketchy foreign and domestic policies. He then ran through a buffed-up political rant that used the "Badder than Bad" line from the Public Enemy song "Bring The Noise." He finished off with a "F---- Bush!" for good measure, which deviated from the show a little bit. After all, he's not Boots from The Coup, even though his intentions are good.

And despite the out of place ending, it did drive home the point: hip-hop, when done the right way, can incite ass-shaking and thought-provoking movement. You just have to look past the mire to find it.

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Check out The West Coast Slam Poetry Championship in Big Sur

Me and my boy Frank Sanchez performing at the 1999 Big Sur Slam (that's me on the right, about 50 pounds ago!)

Spoken word poetry could be the savior of underground hip-hop!

I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it's an argument worth having. Given that "underground Hip-Hop" is either a label of defiance or a punchline, depending on who you're talking to, the spoken word has emerged as the essence of the underground, eschewing all things commercial and cliche in favor of a puritan aesthetic - no one is getting rich off of spoken word.

Not Russell Simmons, who despite launching both Def Jam Poetry on HBO and on Broadway, hasn't seen much return financially (the cable tv show and Broadway production have both been in indefinite hiatus). Spoken word's biggest star, Saul Williams, still toils on the outskirts of famedom. Luckily, his art has not suffered for it.

And so, it is with this righteous ambivalence to corporate exploitation that a show such as The West Coast Poetry Slam Championship can exist almost completely under the radar. This weekend, the 9th annual incarnation goes on as scheduled at The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, a poet's oasis if there ever was one.

The slam championship is a Peninsula poor-man's literary event; on the same weekend rich well-to-do's will shell out hundreds of dollars for tickets to see the Bach Festival or Bill Cosby perform in a movie house, dozens of poets from up and down the left coast will converge to throw down in the woods. At stake: $2000 in prizes, along with bragging rights for Wessyde supremacy.

My homie/mentor Garland Thompson puts on the annual showcase, inviting teams from Nor and So-Cal to whip it out and see who's got the baddest verse. For those that don't know, slam poetry is a form of competitive poetry, wherein the contestants square off to see who gets judged with the highest score.

Judges, chosen randomly from the crowd, rate the poets on a scale of 1-10, taking into consideration style and content as well as performance. Poets have to be on point in both their words and their presentation, so you get skilled wordsmiths displaying Shakesperian-level performance skills.

The best part is that there is no set form, so poems can be as hype as battle raps. And that's what is so hip-hop about the event, the fact that the poets themselves can run through their verse with the same intensity of an MC going for theirs.

I've been to four of the events, and this weekend will mark my fifth appearance. This will be the first year I am not participating as either a competitor or featured poet. I'm a bit bummed, but the show must go on.

In the past, Def Jam Poets have been on display, with exciting artists like Beau Seiu, Poetri, Rives, The Suicide Kings and Mighty Mike McGee grabbing the mic. The ladies represent hardcore as well, with goddesses like Meliza Banales and Emily Kagan solidifying their reps at the championship.

So, if you're in Big Sur this weekend and you feel like being inspired, check out the slam. For more info, visit the Web site www.westcoastslam.com.

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Local content: Check out the Web sites saladbowlmusic.com and 831dacoast.com

One thing that makes the internet so great is the artificial sense of community building that develops at certain spots. Years ago, when I started visiting The Roots Website, okayplayer.com, I had no idea it would become an online community that would spawn record labels (okayplayer records) and propel little known artists (Little Brother) to major label contracts.

It's even better when it happens at the local level, where internet communities can network with real-life community members, resulting in community building. Houston's emergence in the rap world, along with the success of artists like Paul Wall and Chamillionaire, owed a lot to internet savvy. Ditto for the Bay Area.

In Monterey County, two Web sites are at the forefront of the local movement, saladbowlmusic.com and, more recently, 831dacoast.com.

There are plenty of web sites with local artists (check any number of myspace band pages) to choose from, but these two separate themselves because they aim to connect people and promote all forms of local hip-hop artists through discussion forums and artist interviews.

Saladbowlmusic.com is the elder statesman, having been online for the past few years. Administrator Gabriel "Gypsy" Avalos designed the site, while local rappers Doom the Original and Gemini serve as on-site administrators.

The heart of the site is the discussion board, where local rappers hype recent releases, most produced in their bedrooms or at local studios. Parties, shows, events and various news items are discussed, dissed and discussed some more. Most of the time, the discussion is on local talent.

One recent in-person discussion with Gemini revealed some of the drawbacks of moderating a site that allows locals to discuss and sometimes talk trash about one another. Despite the administrators best efforts, delicate egos can be bruised with each posting. It's a fine line between constructive criticism and straight up dissing.

Overall, the site is a nice look into the local scene and the passion with which a lot of the up and coming artists approach their work.

831dacoast.com is fairly new. Launched a few months ago by members of the Seaside-based crew Tha Undahoggs, the site is a nice companion to Saladbowlmusic.com.

Artist interviews are the main highlight, giving folks like Doom and Gemini, along with other local rappers, a bit of star-treatment. The coolest thing on the sight is the streaming collage of album artwork from locally-produced artists.

A quick scan of the album covers revealed one of the first local albums I ever hear, a maxi-single by the group Seaside Posse (I had a copy of that cassette in high school!). There were at least two dozen album covers, and possibly even more than that, on display. The non-stop stream gives an impressive view of the quantity of product being pumped out of the Central Coast.

Equally impressive was the streaming radio, which features dozens of songs produced by Monterey County residents. Songs from artists like Tha UndaHoggs, Mista English, DEA, AK, Fury, Billy Bud Toker (the site's administrator) and others are bumped non-stop, giving folks a chance to sample the 831 funk.

With the abundance of underground talent looming along the Central Coast, Websites like saladbowlmusic.com and 831dacoast.com are helping to bring that talent to a wider audience, one that appreciates the efforts of local do it yourself-ers.

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Fatlip of Tha Pharcyde, Live in Santa Cruz

Pity the fallen rapper, that tragic figure upon which cautionary tales are framed and the true nature of the entertainment industry is revealed.

Fatlip, former Pharcyde affiliate and homie of music video/movie director Spike Jonze, might certainly qualify as such a sadsack tale, but he's not about to sing a sad song.

Performing in the atrium of The Catalyst on Monday night, Fatlip delivered an appropriately short set, dipping in and out of the sparse crowd like he was a paid patron himself. The only thing to differentiate him from the rest was the mic in his hand and the staticky sound of his voice booming through the muffled PA system.

Given the venue (the atrium is usually reserved for local acts) and the big top event in the main room (Steel Pulse played to a packed crowd in the next room, spelling imminent scheduling doom) on a Monday night, no less, Fatlip could have just phoned it in and accepted his sideshow status. But he stopped just short of that.

Instead, he put his best foot forward, going through a non-stop set in front of about 30 people. At some points, he simply went through the motions. At others, he showed a quick glimpse of the showmanship that he was known for during his run with The Pharcyde.

"Live and let live and just let it be," he pronounced during one song, almost a mantra given the context of the night. "Tell it like it is from the grown ups to the kids."

All of the songs were new and unfamiliar, fast-paced and seemingly devoid of the flawed charisma he was known for early on in his career. When he started out with the Pharcyde, Fatlip seemed to separate himself from the other members of the crew with his breathy flow and self-depracating steez.

There were no signs of that on Monday. Even though it was a real impossibility, I still half-expected him to do maybe his verse from "Passing Me By," just to throw the crowd a friggin' bone. Those who were dedicated enough to shell out 14 bones deserved at least that.

Opening act Trek Life also did his best to make the most of a salty situation. Despite his enthusiasm, he couldn't get most of the crowd to stand up out of their chairs.

But if Fatlip is indeed a fallen rapper, he's not complaining about it. Later on in the night, I caught him walking down Pacific Street, all alone, just like any other regular dude. I hollared his name, but he didn't even turn his head. Perhaps he's content being a person rather than a personality.

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My High School Years re-visited

Rap releases in recent months have had me thinking that it was 1995 instead of 2006.

Rappers like The Coup, Ice Cube, E-40 and Busta Rhymes have all put out new albums this year. All released albums 10 years ago within a year's time frame.

In 1994, The Coup released "Genocide and Juice," the same year Ice Cube released "Lethal Injection" and E-40 delivered "The Mail Man." Busta Rhymes was a member of the group Leaders of the New School, whose sophomore album "T.I.M.E." dropped in 1993.

I was still in high school during this time, and remember buying all of those releases back then. So I figured it was worth checking out the new releases from these rappers, especially considering that a 10-year rap career is equivalent to a 20-year career in Major League Baseball. Rap is a young man's game and the grizzled veterans still pumping out product deserve at least a nod from the hip-hop public, if not a curtain call ovation.

First on the list, E-40's album, "My Ghetto Report Card," has been out for a few months now. It's release was intended to be the nation's introduction to the Bay Area's "Hyphy Movement," which I've been pining about in my blog for a few months now.

The album, produced by Lil Jon and Rick Rock, has it's highs and lows. A definite high is the opening number, "Yay Area," which jacks Digable Planets (another veteran act attempting a comeback) on the hook. The "We be to rap what key be to lock" vocal sample sounds insanely pitch perfect when combined with Rick Rock's trembling drums. Another winner is the single "Tell Me When To Go," a club anthem and new school Yay area classic. If you haven't heard this one, you haven't been paying any attention to rap music in the past six months.

The Debbie Downer points come about six songs in, when you realize that the album is a marathon length when it only needed to be a sprint. At a robust 22 tracks, the album filler is half and half. By the time you drag across the finish line to the best lyrics on the song, the outstanding "Happy Just To Be Here," you feel so spent you almost can't appreciate the extended run.

Busta Rhymes is centering his latest album, "The Big Bang," as the platform for his "King of New York" campaign. He corronated himself such at Hot 97's Summer Jam a few weeks ago, according to written reports, but he has as much a chance of being Frank Black as Lil Wayne (which is to say, not much).

The problem is that "The Big Bang just doesn't pack that much bang. The best song, "NY S***" jacks a beat that's several years old (An old Diamond D track), and aspires to be the biggest NYC anthem since "Deja Vu" by Corey Guns and Al Tariq. Yes, NYC rap has been in steady decline since Snoop came through and crushed the buildings, but Busta as its savior? I love Bussa Bus, but even he can't bring the city out of its rut. And when you're trying to resurrect the NY state of mind using Dre's beats, maybe you're fighting a long-lost cause.

Ice Cube, meanwhile, could himself have tried to bill his latest album "Laugh Now, Cry Later," as another attempt to resurrect the West Coast, but he knows better. Instead, he simply reaffirms his status as West Coast don, almost like" The Soprano's" Johnny Sac returning from the pen and taking back his spot as the boss of Brooklyn.

Cube's first sing, the hell-raising "Why We Thugs," updates the revolutionary but gangsta steez he originated on his first two albums, the classics "Amerikka's Most Wanted" and "Death Certificate." The album's hook asks the very serious question "They give us guns and drugs/then wonder why in the f*** we thugs." It takes aim at Bush and Clinton without falling into arm chair political rhetoric, and the beat is a monster.

The rest of the album falls right in line with that barn burner. Cube wins by simply doing what he's always done: big upping the West Coast and apologizing for nothing. The gangsta you love to hate is back.

So to are hip-hop's favorite anarchists, The Coup. Their debut, 1993's "Kill My Landlord," is easily one of my top ten all time favorite albums. And with "Pick a Bigger Weapon," they bust out as rap's version of SF Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel, savvy veterans who maintain success by simply improving on their winning formula.
Whereas Vizquel uses his golden glove and on-base-percentage, The Coup dazzle with grass-roots activism and Oakland funk. Like Vizquel joining the Giants lineup, The Coup strayed from long-time independent status to release an album on punk rock imprint Epitaph.

"Pick a Bigger Weapon's" secret weapon is Boots Riley's underappreciated lyricism. Boots has always been a thought-provoking rapper, but he seems to have found the balance this time out, with songs like "I Just Want to Lay Around All Day in Bed With You" and "My Favorite Mutiny" serving as the perfect framework for Riley's mind spray. And the latter finds Riley in appropriate company: MC's Black Thought and Talib Kweli, some of the most effective lyrical assassins, stand side by side with Rilly in killing the track.

And more than a decade after my first exposure to The Coup, it's great to hear that they are maintaining not only their relevancy, but quality of work this far in the game.

Quick Note: Savvy readers may have picked up on the fact that I have been on an unannounced hiatus the past few weeks. I will continue to be on hiatus through the rest of June (although a show review may pop up in spots). Fear not. I have not abandoned ship, but am merely taking a moment to re-charge my batteries and line up some more goodness through the summer. In the meantime, be patient, shoot me your comments, and keep clicking the link to the picture of the guy with the chubby cheeks. Al Rato.

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"The Beat Q&A: Dem Hoodstarz

Jay-Z first popularized the concept of "Getting Your Grown Man On," but you can safely say that Dem Hoodstarz have capitalized on it.

The Palo Alto-based duo consisting of rappers Scoot and Band Aid established itself on the Bay Area rap scene with two smash singles in 2005, "Bull S***" and the monster "Grown Man On (remix)." The latter, produced by San Jo-producer extraordinaire Traxxamillion, recieved considerable radio airplay and solidified their presence in The Yay, in spite of their South SF Bay locale.

The group performed in Santa Cruz recently, bringing out their wild stage show to their "Bay Area neighbor." With a recent film just wrapped, "The Yadida Movie," and another film project with TI, Jeezy and Akon in the works, the group appears to be expanding its earning potential. The album "Hood Reality 2," with it's subsequent DVD, is slated for an August release.

Dem Hoodstarz took time to talk to "The Beat" about their newfound success. Here's how it all went down.

What's good.
BA: Same e old same old man,

Thanks for taking time to talk to "The Beat."
BA: We want to thank you for interviewing us...


So, I've done something similar with your boy, Traxxamillion, as far as this interview stuff...
BA: Yeah, Traxx, that's our go to guy. That's like Joe Montana to Jerry Rice, a good combination.
Scoot: Yeah, we help each other out. We can't do it without the beat, and he can't do it without the rap.


Will this be your first time coming to the Central Coast?
BA: No, we've been in Santa Cruz before, we was at the car show for the radio station...
Scoot: Yeah, we was in Santa Cruz, at a car show...
BA: It was in in Monterey, for KDON.
Scoot: Not that one, I'm talking about the one. It was just me and you. It was like a lot of Surenos, They had the girls in bikinis washing the cars...

BA: Oh yeah, that was in Santa Cruz.

When was that?
S: That was about a year ago. We was pumping out some new stuff.

Are you familiar with the area?
S: Oh yeah, for sure.
BA: Santa Cruz, that's the neighbor to the Bay Area

How important is it that all Northern Cali get involved in the Hyphy movement?
S: It's so important. Without everyone else participating, we can't get the attention we need to make it as big. We feed of the energyf the crow, we feed of the energy of the fans.
BA: Without them properly letting it be known, this whole Hyphy thing can't get out to the rest of the world.
S: It seems like the whole Northern Carolina is already with it. They with us right now.

You guys are planning a tour?
BA: Yep, we just went on a radio promo tour, that was big. From Portland to Arizona, this summer, we're going to be working with the radio stations for more shows...
S: Just in Northern Cali alone, with the different people coming to the bay area we've been performing when they come out here. Like we're performing with with the Young Bloods and Dem Franchize Boys.
BA: Last night it was with Chamillionare and the field mob and that new guy, what's his name...
S: Lupe Fiasco...
BA: Yeah and on Sunday with Mobb Deep. And on Saturday, we're performing with Bubba Sparxx and Christina Millian.
S: And we just wrapped up a movie, "Yadida"...

Yeah, I want to get into that in a minute... Have you guys gone outside Cali? If so, what's been the response?

BA: (On their myspace.com page) We've been added to all types of space, all over the world. And when I say all over the world, I'm not saying the just the U.S. We've been getting added in Denmark, New Jersey.
S: We've been added in Alabama, Ohio, it's steady growing. The buzz has been phenomenal.
BA: Me and Scoot, we've always had dreams, but we never even thought our dreams would get to where they are now. That's making us push that much harder. We push for a goal, and we got past that. And now our goal is to reach a million, and that's our goal to reach a million people, worldwide.

What will it take to get people not from The Bay to understand the culture?
S: Right now, the Hyphy has spread like wildfire. With the success of E-40, with the whole BME, Warner Bros. situation, that was able to move it to a worldwide forefront. People like E-40, Too Short, ppl like the late Mac Dre, rest in peace, people like that is giving more light to the underground... But the Hyphy movement is not underground, it's real mainstream now... The whole world has accepted it, they've accepted what we got going on right now.That's the thing, we' making music right now, not just wax. We're making good music now, and they're able to feel it...
It's due to the success of E-40 and Too short, and now you see people like Keak tha Sneak, on MTV, a whole lot of record companies are paying attention to what's going on in the Bay.
BA: I don't think everybody really catches on, not yet. Really the only person who really is out there is like too short and E-40,
40 got that exposure, because he's on Warner Brothers, but he even said that his album wasn't all Hyphy. Too Short got that exposure, but that's just because he's been out for so long. They both have long money, so even if they company didn't help them out they're still out there...
I think they need to share some of that same spotlight with their fellow bay area artist, help some other folks get some of that shine. And then you can get a true understanding of what Hyphy is all about, because not everyone is getting it right now...
You can't never get the full definition of a word from the dictionary, that's why not everyone has been able to understand what we got going on over here.
To me, it seems like they really only listening to 40 and really not Keak. If they was his sales would be up more, maybe they should be out there giving him some more shine, some more face time on the videos and stuff...
I think everyone is catching up to it, but they not catching on to everything. They catching on to what 40 is doing, but there's new music coming out every day, and in stead of listening to one person, folks should be listening to everything that's out there...
Too Short, like I said, is talking about this pimping thing, and 40, the whole album is not supposed to be Hyphy. So (other regions) they need to hear different people's definition of Hyphy instead of going to one person, and then people will get a better understanding of how we living out here in the Bay Area.

You guys both sport them, so tell me, what's the significance of The Dreads? Is it anything like what Rasta's sport? Why is it the thing in the Bay?
S: It ain't just a Bay Area thing. It's not a bay, east, west, south, regional thing. It's a cultural thing. We rock our dreads as a statement, you feel me. We rock it as a statement of defiance. We shake our dreads and that's just how we do them. It's just for real, we just shake em, it's just a way of going down
BA: It's like, I know you been to a headbanger ball, when they be shaking their head hard, like "Arrgh!"
S: Yeah, you get to banging your head hella hard...
BA: Yeah, like that old school, Skid Row type of music... That's all Hyphy is. It's a form of crunk, a form of rock and roll, it's all that rolled into one...
It's a form of energy, and you can be doing anything. You can be kicking your friend, chomping off the head of a bat, whatever...
(begins to get excited) And you see, that's what makes it so crazy, we out there, we shaking our dreads, and we just acting out, and you might see someone on the intersection, they start to ghost ride the whip, and that makes you want to ghost ride the whip, go hard and go nutty. And then that maybe makes you want to jump on the hood of your car and start dancing, and it's like look at me, I'm going dum, I'm getting Hyphy, and it's in the middle of a damn intersection. And it's a party in the middle of the intersection...Damn, I just got hyphy on the phone (laughs).

What emphasis do you guys put on live shows? Do you try to do anything different from other artists with similar style?
S: Every show we get, we give it everything. If you've never been to a Hood Star performance, that's the thing. We keep that energy, it's wild...
BA: We was like, we underground, as far as the bay. As far as everyone getting into groups, our name wasn't mentioned on the radio or nothing, folks wasn't really talking about us like that. It wasn't until we started putting on shows, and folks started saying, "Hey, that Hood Star show, the crowd went crazy," and we started to make our name like that. That's kind of how we got started, was our shows.
S: We try not to ever keep the crowd calm. We want them to go crazy.
BA: We want to see a moshpit dance, like it was a rock concert, yadidamean. They moshpit dance like it was a rock concert. When we see them going, that keeps us going...

You guys just wrapped a movie. What was that experience like?
BA: That was our first time ever acting. It felt natural other than the cameras up in your face, i twa s cool because we had a lot of fun doing it. I played a character named hook and he played a char. name D-Plug. We run a pizza shop...The story isn't about us, it's about a dude named Stacy...It's comparable to Ice Cube's Friday, based on Northern California culture and life...Basically, it's about this dude named Stacy who comes from NY, and he don't understand what everybody is talking about, he doesn't understand what people are saying, he doesn't get the slang or anything, and he has to figure it out...It's a good movie and it's going to come out in December.

Will it be released in theatres?
S: It's going straight to DVD...The movie we're shooting in July, it's going got movie theaters. We don't know too much about the story, we just know it's with TI, Young Jeezy, and Akon

Is there any different dynamic/attitude that comes from being Palo Alto representatives? Do you guys have a different steez from say Oakland or SF?
BA: To tell you the truth, the only thing that comes from us being in a s smaller city, we have to work a little harder. We have to go get them different deals and get them different people to come to our community because they don't know about our community.
S: A lot of people don't hear about East Palo Alto.
BA: When you hear about Cali, someone that isn't from Cali, the first thing they think about is SF, then they think about Oakland or LA, they don't even know where Palo Alto is... It just makes it a little harder, to achieve what we want,
S: It's a struggle though. I'll tell you that.

You guys both have been through the system in terms of having both been incarcerated. Yet your music at times doesn't seem to reflect some of the hard-core gangsta living that other rappers with your guys background might suggest. Is there a conscious effort to keep your stuff a little more positive, less negative?
S: We tell our story. We telling our lives. We telling what we basically been through. We ain't telling nobody to do what we went through. We letting them know our story, at the same time, it's not like our album is based on that.
BA: It's based around things that go on in our hood. It's based around things that happen. It's surrounding those issues that you might not see in the TV or read in the newspaper, it's everyday thins that we do, whether it's going to the club, or just chillin on the day to day. It's stuff that's taken from our everyday lives, but we ain't candy coating nothing.
S: We got some subconscious songs, like about growing up with your moms on crack, because in the black community, that's what we grew up on. We just basically let them know how it really is and how it really was.

What's your definition of getting your Grown Man On?
S: To me, the reason why we had to talk about getting grown is we're trying to get everybody away from the Hyphy, get them out the white t -shirts and the dreads. We're trying to make our whole album well rounded, we try to say, we're with the hyphy movement, but we're not necessarily Hyphy. We're trying to make it so you're able to feel what we talking about on all kinds of different levels, and not just stuck on one mode.
BA: My definition, it means... when it's time to quit playing the games and you gotta really get your grown man, on, you can take your life and make things happen for yourself. It's taking responsibility for yourself, for your life, for your bills, and taking care of everything on your own. That means, you're doing it for yourself and not depending on anyone else.
Getting your grown man on isn't about living at home with your mom and pops or having your girl take care of your and your bills. What it means to me, is being able to do for yourself. If you're grown, you get your own money, if you're a grown man or grown woman, you're making your own for yourself. That's what it's all about.

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