Rap/Hip-Hop

Some people separate their day jobs from their night gigs. For Senor Kaos, hip-hop is a full-time hustle. Voted Atlanta's best hip-hop artist of 2008 by 89.3's Beatz and Lyrics show, he also doubles as a show promoter and blogger (TheKaosEffect.com). He recently interviewed Atlanta indie rap group Collective Efforts -- which released it's latest EP, Time for Hope, in 2008 and plans to follow up with a full album this year.

News today is that Live Nation and Ticketmaster may merge into a new corporation. Of course, this is conjuring up images of Godzilla in my mind.

Whatever happened to the simpler days of buying tickets? There was no Internet. It was go to a ticketmaster counter or call in on the phone. I remember "camping" outside of the local music store, huddled in my brother's Volvo as a few of us all waited for wristbands so that we could then try and buy Grateful Dead tickets.

Two months out, the Memphis Music Foundation is gearing up for a big local presence at Austin's annual South by Southwest Music Festival, which takes place March 18th-22nd. Last week, the foundation announced the stellar lineup for its official Memphis Music showcase, a mix of local rock and rap leading up to a closing set from Stax legends The Bar-Kays.

The showcase, which will take place on March 19th, will pair rockers Lucero, Jack O & the Tearjerkers, and River City Tanlines with rap/hip-hop acts Eightball & MJG, Al Kapone, and Free Sol. The foundation is still finalizing the line-up for its SXSW day party, according the director of development and communications Pat Mitchell Worley.

I just got back from the Green Inaugural Ball on Constitution Ave at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. I'm sure Darrow will have photos of this event soon. But I was thinking: I just saw Wyclef Jean. And I felt nothing. At one point in my life, Jean's old band dominated every single house party I went to. Tonight, he looked kinda old slogging away with his bad Marleyisms. The dude wore a wife beater. He had a bumper sticker on his forehead. He's got a gut. He phoned in a version of the national anthem. He used a flange pedal on the national anthem. When's this guy going to get his own cruise ship?

RollingStone.com has a story about 50 Cent coming out and dissing Kanye West and Lil Wayne.

:::yawn:::

There hasn't been a really good rap rivalry since the East Coast-West Coast days, and look where that got the scene -- to two funerals.

Dominick Brady, who's been doing some wonderful Atlanta music scene podcasts as of late, recently interviewed Atlanta underground hip-hop head Dres tha Beatnik for an upcoming story in Art Noveau magazine. Here's an excerpt Brady posted on his blog, DominickBrady.com, in which Dres reveals the defining -- and most embarrassing -- moment of his career:

Sometimes Atlanta's new wave of underground hip-hop seems like a motherless child. Or an alien that lost contact with the mothership.

In a galaxy far away from the finger snaps that made Bankhead go pop and the traps that turned T.I. and Young Jeezy into hot commodities, there exists an alternate universe where beats are measured by the blogosphere instead of the bump produced in your trunk.

Over the past year, an emerging underworld (filled with hipster-leaning hoppers, second-generation ATLiens, and otherwise unidentifiable but fly MCs) seemed poised to forsake an authentic Dirty South sound for more of the same cocaine-laced synth lines and recycled computer love à la Kanye West. It became a desperate state of affairs.

But the new compilation The 808 Experiment, Vol. 1 from SMKA Productions proves there's still hope. By bridging the city's slicker, hipster derivative and its indigenous red clay swagger, the album may bring Atlanta's rap legacy back to the future. And a burgeoning scene could get the chance to redefine itself before some random blogger does.

The 808 Experiment features more than 25 MCs, including Gripplyaz, one of the artists on the standout track "Caddys." Once he says with a laugh, "I am not a fucking hipster" for the umpteenth time during a recent telephone interview, it becomes clear not only how frustrated he is with the label but also how much he embodies the sentiment behind the compilation. Grip, like a growing class of local acts, occupies that rare, hard-to-define space within Atlanta's underground between straight-up hood and hipster-hop.

Rolling Stone has published its top 50 albums of 2008, with TV on the Radio leading the way. I definitely don't agree. Not to say that it was a bad album, but I wasn't impressed. Maybe I should take another listen...