Garrett Caples

D-Lo

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D-Lo

"Rappin’ wasn’t my first dream," admits 20-year-old D’Angelo Porter. "It was pro basketball. I always had good grades because of basketball."

Yet fate had other plans for the man known as D-Lo. A dabbler in rap who’d only made a few tracks, D-Lo went into his friend’s studio alone one night in February 2007, determined "to find [his] swag" on the mic. He made a stomping, minimalist beat — his first — on Fruity Loops, over which he discovered his style: a hyperactive staccato with a slight rasp, a little like Keak Da Sneak in a higher register. The song, "No Hoe," undeniably slapped, prompting D-Lo and his brother, Sleepy D, also new to rap, to burn CD singles and hand them out at BART stations, schools, and so on.

Two months later, D-Lo began serving a year in the county jail for attempted robbery, ending his hoop dreams. Yet Sleepy continued pushing "No Hoe" in the Oakland streets and on MySpace, and the song went viral. On the evening of his release in 2008, D-Lo performed his first show, in Richmond.

"I wasn’t nervous," he says. "I wanted to see if people knew the song. As soon as I come on, everybody went crazy."

Throughout 2008, D-Lo kept pushing the song, which soon found its way into the clubs. A low-budget video on YouTube kept the buzz alive; meanwhile D-Lo hooked up with Clear Label/PTB, the label responsible for Beeda Weeda’s success. Before long, KMEL was getting tons of requests for a song it couldn’t play on the radio.

But D-Lo managed to make an acceptably "clean" version for airplay. He also put together a high-profile remix featuring Beeda, E-40, and the Jacka. More crucially, to prove he wasn’t a fluke, he released a new, broadcast-friendly single, "You Played Me," with a hook sung by Rico the Kid. D-Lo’s MySpace page tells the story: "No Hoe" earned an impressive 900,000 hits over the past two years, but "You Played Me" garnered 1.1 million in a matter of months. While "You Played Me" is slated for D-Lo’s upcoming SMC debut, Undeniable Talent, the original and remix of "No Hoe" are available now on his "pre-album," The Tonite Show with D-Lo (Clear Label/PTB), among the best so far in the DJ Fresh-produced series.

With his grassroots rise and radio-readiness, D-Lo has attracted the attention of companies like Interscope and Def Jam. Perhaps he could be the new Bay rapper who finally breaks through to major label glory — a prospect he greets with both impatience and resolve.

"The shit be slow," he says of major label talks. "But I wouldn’t be as popular as I am for nothing, so I keep pushin’."

www.myspace.com/mrnohoe

>>GOLDIES 2009: The 21st Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery awards, honoring the Bay’s best in arts

Do you remember?

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Do you remember?

Multicultural

hot vocals

everywhere I go

I get love from the locals — Mac Dre, "The Genie of the Lamp"

MUSIC "A mack is different from a pimp," Mac Mall tells me. "A pimp would starve without a woman. But a mack is a master of creativity. He can manipulate any situation."

As a "third-generation mack" from Vallejo’s notorious Crestside hood, Mac Mall knows whereof he speaks. "Mack" is an age-old term in the Bay, lending itself to the region’s premier blaxploitation film, The Mack (1973). Yet, Mall reveals, "There ain’t gonna be anymore rappers named ‘Mac’ out of the Crest" because the title has accrued too much tragedy. The very first rapper — in both the Crest and Vallejo itself — was the Mac, Michael Robinson, who was murdered in a case of mistaken identity in 1990. But the immediate catalyst for the name’s retirement was the murder of André Hicks, a.k.a. Mac Dre, who was gunned down Nov. 1, 2004 in Kansas City.

Five years later, Dre is more popular than ever, receiving the kind of universal love in the Bay generally reserved for 2pac. Images of Dre are so ubiquitous the lead single from Mall’s just-released Mac to the Future (Thizzlamic) is "Mac Dre T-Shirt."

"It’s the flag of the whole Bay," Mall says. "Even if you’s old, you know that face because you seen it everywhere. Dre’s part of our culture, like the Grateful Dead."

Yet Mall admits he and others among Dre’s Thizz Entertainment empire feel occasional ambivalence about Dre’s iconographic status. "I know we share him with the world," he says. "It be hard sometimes because he’s so us. He’s ours. But I opened my mind: even if they’ll never get it, there’s something like us they relate to in there, something everyone can grab onto."

Some of Dre’s appeal is, of course, obvious. Unlike many rappers, he had a gangsta authenticity, partly stemming from almost five years in prison for conspiracy to rob a bank (although he and his actual bank-robber friends — like rapper J-Diggs — insisted he was innocent). But far more important is his humor, expressed in unexpected metaphors ("get on a nigga’s head like some headphones"), goofy characters (Ronald Dregan, Thizzelle Washington), and a life-of-the-party attitude, even concocting his own dances (the Furley, the Thizzelle Dance). What other thug could rock cardigans and Burberry? With his lean, lanky frame and outrageous hairstyles, Dre was like a combination Snoop Dogg and Humpty Hump.

According to Mistah F.A.B., whose breakthrough disc Son of a Pimp (2005) came out on Thizz, Snoop himself is fan.

"Snoop was watching [Dre’s DVD] Treal TV (2003)," F.A.B. reports, "and was like, ‘That nigga’s a fool!’ When someone big as Snoop gives Dre the respect and love, that lets you know the ability he had."

"He wasn’t the average of what we produce," says Dre’s close friend and fellow Cutthroat Committee-member Dubai. "He excelled in the game like, left-wing, not how you’re used to someone doing it. The average motherfucker who do it like this is a weirdo, and this dude is cool as fuck. So it opened up motherfuckers. You can come through and be yourself."

All of Dre’s friends I spoke to brought up this same point. As Mac Mall put it, "He let people feel free. He went to the pen and could’ve been rappin about the hardest stuff, but he was more about having fun. Everyone gives you a façade, but Dre was a whole."

Mistah F.A.B. even links Dre’s wholeness to his penchant for characters. "They were all aspects of his personality," he says. "When you deal with truth, you have nothing to hide. You can keep moving forward by being yourself."

For the Jacka — who, as a member of the Mob Figaz, released the group’s Best of (2005) on Thizz — Dre’s integrity accounts for both his broad appeal and his positive influence. "He wasn’t ashamed to be who he was," Jacka recalls. "He was one way with everybody. But he knew how to talk to people of any race and showed us how to be around whites and Mexicans and be like, these dudes are cool too."

"He was like a Martin Luther King," Jacka says. "People might not understand what I mean by that, but if you were in the streets, you understand."

Whether or not Jacka’s claim seems excessive, it’s striking to see the actions taken in the name of Mac Dre. Among the labyrinthine divisions of Thizz Entertainment — such as Mall’s new Thizzlamic imprint — is Thizz Latin, an unprecedented alliance between black and Latino rappers, which, for a seemingly insular hood like Crestside, is most impressive. "I’m proud of what Thizz Latin is doing," Mac Mall says. "In L.A., the blacks and the Latins don’t get along. But in the Bay, we together."

Between that and the 2pac-like way in which his death brought a much needed fellow-feeling within the notoriously internecine environment of Bay rap, Dre has had a profound influence over the past five years. "I want the positive about Dre to be remembered," Jacka concludes. "For people to look past the hard part. He created ‘going dumb,’ but that’s not all he wanted to leave behind."

Who the hell is Esinchill?

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Who the hell is Esinchill?

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC "Esinchill is one of the most … " Mistah F.A.B. pauses to reconsider. "No, Esinchill is the most underrated rapper in the Bay."

I agree, and "underrated" in this case means "underknown," because, once heard, Esinchill’s talents are undeniable. His is a lyrical wit based more on word choice ("I go from extremely docile to routinely hostile") than punchlines. With a million flows at his disposal, he’s equally able to freestyle or compose. Esinchill himself thematizes this: "Once you play me, then you like me, then you love me, and it’s ugly from there," he raps over the guitar-driven K-MAXX production "I Dare You," which opens Vigilante, his second solo album, released digitally (with CDs to follow) by Jake Records. Put him on a track with more famous rappers and, as F.A.B. says, "He overshines them all."

So why isn’t Esinchill better known? Partly because his career path has been atypical. The man born Erick Campbell started out with Digital Underground. He spent five years touring with DU, playing more than 200 nights a year, with crowds ranging from a couple hundred to 60,000. He even appears with DU on DJ Quik’s classic Balance & Options (Arista, 2000). Few Bay rappers can boast these types of credentials. Yet after two local releases — his solo debut Everything to Lose! (Rceason, 2002) and a duo disc with King Beef, Choice Cuts (Rceason, 2005) — Esinchill remains East Oakland’s best-kept secret.

"People don’t know how to market me," Esinchill says by phone from Atlanta, where’s he’s writing R&B and rock songs for Outkast’s Dungeon Family. Songwriting is Esinchill’s latest industry endeavor; in 2007, he even penned a Top 20 adult contemporary hit "Tuesday" for former Tower of Power singer Lenny Williams. His remark refers to the difficulty of landing a deal, but it also summarizes the second obstacle to his reputation: in the promiscuous world of Bay rap, where the primary way to build a buzz is through collaborations with well-known artists, the hard-to-categorize Esinchill remains aloof. He comes from the same East Oakland streets as gangsta rappers like Keak Da Sneak or Beeda Weeda, but he doesn’t rap about gangsta topics.

"If an artist chooses to rap about those kinds of things, selling dope, killing people, and robbing, it boxes you in," Esinchill says. "I would say the majority of the cats who rap like that don’t live that lifestyle. But I wouldn’t talk about nothing unless I’m doing it or seen it."

On the other hand, Esinchill’s not a backpack rapper. While there’s an undeniable political dimension to his work, it invokes direct emotional response. On "Where’s the Justice?" — the most overt number on the album, invoking the Black Panthers’ "Off the Pigs" — Esinchill tells of a DUI he got "when he wasn’t drivin’," shouting "I was a passenger! I was a passenger!" Anyone who has dealt with the arbitrary injustice of the police can identify, even as he emphasizes that whites don’t realize the extent of what African Americans endure regularly.

Such stranger-than-fiction personal anecdotes underscore what makes Esinchill compelling. Only on "All the Way Live," a parodic pimp song produced by Jake-One, does E assume a character. Otherwise he raps as himself, displaying an entire, idiosyncratic personality rather than the one-dimensional gangsta persona common even among great rappers. His lyrics retain their comic flair, but his subject matter is mostly serious, even somber.

"Growth is essential," Esinchill says, inadvertently punning on his name. "I’ve matured as a person, but also as an artist. And with song topics as well. Of course, I got the miscellaneous shit. But I also got thought-provoking songs and conceptual songs."

Such songs range include "Daddy Was a Sailorman," in which he travels through time to meet his 18-year-old father; "I Feel U," where he expresses his angst about a compendium of social evils; and "The ’70s," an homage to one of the characterful decades of the 20th century, featuring vocals by Latoya London — star of American Idol and the stage musical version of Color Purple — for whom E also has been writing songs. Aside from a few vocalists like London, David Hollister, and the Bay’s premier hookstress, Naté, collaborators are scarce, limited to the few locals who can vibe with Esinchill, like Casual from Hieorglyphics, and FAB himself. Otherwise E goes it alone, and the result is a true album. Apart from the Jacka’s long-awaited triumph Tear Gas (Artist Records/SMC), Vigilante has no competition among Bay releases this year.

"My goal is to put out hot shit and not fold under pressure to veer into the normal lane," Esinchill concludes. "At my core, I’m just different. I’m incapable of being normal, as far as music goes. I gotta stay to the left — that’s just me."

“John Anderson: A Retrospective”

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REVIEW John Anderson is among the great unknown painters of the 20th century. I say "20th" because, though living, he was forced to stop painting in 2003 due to Parkinson’s disease. He painted voluminously, beginning in the 1950s, but seldom exhibited, and he’s never had a show on the scale of his current retrospective. As Gordon Onslow Ford’s studio assistant, he learned about abstract automatism from a master, and was invited to live on Onslow Ford’s extensive Inverness estate in 1966, where he remains today. Thus he was able to pursue a pure artistic vision without needing to accommodate (or even notice) the fashions of the professional art world.

The results can be astonishing. If you’ve walked by the gallery in the past couple months, you may have seen in the window his painting Real Red (2000), which seemed to run an entire block down Powell Street (it’s since been taken inside for the show). Large-scale works were Anderson’s forte and Real Red amply illustrates both what he learned from his mentor and how he departed from Onslow Ford’s aesthetics. For even as he embraced the latter’s zen vision of circle, line, and dot as the basis of visual experience, Anderson ultimately rejected the equation of automatism with speed. For him, spontaneity wasn’t incompatible with a more deliberate architecture, within which the improvised elements could play. (The show does, however, include a pair of early exercises — paintings executed in 15 minutes — which are splendid though atypical.)

While some of his work displays Onslow Ford’s influence, Anderson clearly developed along his own lines over the years. A series of blue and white paintings from the 1970s are unlike anything I’ve ever seen, often composed in straight lines across the canvas which nonetheless yield various circular forms that appear to emerge from below the surface. There are fluid abstractions from the 1990s that at once give the impression of an impossible circuitry and the energy coursing through it. An electric blue often serves as the dominant tone, though his black and white work is equal to his use of color. This show is the first opportunity to see most of these works, but hopefully not the last for a painter who merits the designation of "master."

JOHN ANDERSON: A RETROSPECTIVE Through Sept. 23. Weinstein Gallery, 301 Geary, SF. (415) 362-8151, www.weinstein.com

Confessions of a Bo-Fessional

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

That Bo & Sprite, I mix it up and tip it every day and night

— Shady Nate, "Bo & Sprite," The Bo-Fessional

DRUGS I’m in the backyard of Shady Nate’s aunty’s house on 28th and "Zipper" (Chestnut Street) in West Oakland, watching Lil Rue of Livewire pour four ounces of purple syrup into a liter of Sprite, which turns the hue of pink champagne. With the residue, he coats a cigarette, Shady coats a Black&Mild, and Jay Jonah coats a blunt, which sputters and foams as it burns. When Rue licks the syrup cap, however, Jonah protests this breach of etiquette, though the dispute dissipates as the bottle goes around.

The syrup in question is promethazine-codeine cough syrup, known variously as "lean," "sizzurp," even simply "purple" (wreaking linguistic havoc since "purple" also means weed). "Lean" derives from its characteristic side-effect: if you drink enough, you need to lean against something to stand. West Oakland’s term of choice is "Bo," as in "Robitussin." Bo first oozed into rap in the late ’90s via the South, associated with the slowed-down chopped and screwed sound invented by Houston’s DJ Screw. One of Shady’s OGs, Big Mayne, assures us Bo’s been in Oakland forever, though formerly cheap liquor was its vehicle. (Drinking it straight is called "raw.") Soda is a comparatively recent innovation, indicating Bo’s increasingly youthful demographic, which extends to middle school.

"In ’95, I ain’t seen no one sippin’ syrup but OGs," Shady recalls. "We didn’t know what it was. Around 2000, it started to pop — couple motherfuckers knew about it but not everybody. But now, it’s like a fad. Like Mac Dre came with the thizz, it’s syrup now."

As Shady notes, Bo has supplanted Ecstasy as the hood’s must-do drug. But Bo is more likley to kill you; promethazine causes extreme drowsiness and potentially, in large enough doses, heart attacks or respiratory failure. DJ Screw himself died of respiratory failure at age 29 in 2000. In December 2007, six months after his post-prison triumph with UGK’s No. 1-debuting Underground Kings (Jive, 2007), Pimp C, 33, succumbed to a lethal combination of syrup and his preexisting sleep apnea.

The possibility of death has, of course, never deterred drug use except in individual cases; even so, as a trend, Bo is a risky high. Addictiveness aside, the best part of the high, I’m told, occurs on the brink of nodding off. (Jonah claims that nodding off at the wheel, not overdose, is the leading cause of Bo-related death in West Oakland.) But the target — "catching your nod" — seems easy for the inexperienced to overshoot, particularly when the delivery method is a beverage that tastes like it was designed for kids.

Tastes? Well, yes, I took a few pulls from the bottle, purely for journalistic purposes. Four ounces among four people isn’t enough to make you lean or nod, but it’s enough to get the idea. I was pretty lifted for three hours, then mildly so the rest of the day. The promethazine considerably enhances the codeine: my head felt pleasant, like a halo extended a few inches between me and the world, yet the sensation was crisp, not foggy, at least at this dosage, peaceful rather than giddy. This was a one-time trial for me, but I could easily see wanting to extend the high.

Indeed, extension is the point; Shady’s ideal is to nurse four or more ounces over the course of the day. In terms of rap hedonism, Bo has ushered in a new vibe. You don’t guzzle, you "tip" or "kiss" it. Instead of ballin’, you brag on stinginess, "I ain’t sippin’ with you" being a common refrain. Generally I’ve found people in the ghetto generous with weed — the blunt’s a preeminently social event — so Bo’s antisocial element is striking. "I done seen fights over the lacers," Shady laughs, referring to the use of the residue. "It almost just went down — Jonah almost took off Lil Rue!"

On this day in July, Shady has a pair of projects in Rasputin’s rap Top 20: an album, Gasman Unleashed (PTB/Clear Label/SMC); and a mixtape, The Bo-Fessional (DJ Racks), on which every song is devoted to Bo. As we drink, I ask about its effect on his creative process.

"I can rap all fast," he says (an understatement), "but when I’m on syrup — I’m singin’, I’m harmonizin’. It slows me down."

The difference is palpable on "Bo & Sprite," his mixtape take on Kid Cudi’s "Day and Night." The choice itself is uncharacteristic, as is the weird thickness of his Bo-soaked delivery, discovering melodic filigrees only implied in the original as he spins an amusingly mundane tale of scoring — classic drug music. Most of Shady’s vocals on Gasman are lean-free by necessity, in order to achieve full speed, but Bo-Fessional serves as an inspired b-side, documenting what, in Oakland, may be the Summer of Bo.

But Bo’s already grown scarce; the members of Livewire say the police have cracked down and doctors aren’t prescribing it due to the widespread abuse. Already expensive — roughly $15 an ounce — Bo’s street price is ever increasing due to the drought, which limits Shady’s indulgence to roughly once a week. This might be frequent enough, given Bo’s potential dangers. I very much understand the attraction, but at the same time, Shady and Livewire are talented dudes with a lot to live for.

Street TV

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Ray Luv came up with a pre-Digital Underground 2pac in their group, Strictly Dope, and wrote "Trapped," Pac’s first single from 2Pacalypse Now (Priority, 1991). Grandson of Cab Calloway, he’s among the few rappers to be close to both Pac and Mac Dre, who brought him to Crestside, Vallejo’s Strictly Business Records for his EP, Who Can Be Trusted? (1992), leading to a deal with Atlantic for his classic LP, Forever Hustlin‘ (1995). He’s done everything from lecturing in Europe to pimping during Bay rap’s early ’00s doldrums. His conversation ranges from ancient Sparta — "They were a great, warlike people, but they died out because they didn’t have culture" — to UpCodes that market music directly to consumers.

The title of Deathwish (PTBTV), Ray’s first solo album since 2002, reflects the darkness of a period when, he says, "I was prepared to die for street shit." As he puts it on the incendiary opener, "Swing Low," he was "running from [his] destiny and calling." That calling is evident on the album and on Pushin’ the Bay TV (pushinthebay.com).

A collaboration with Chinese-American artist Emcee T, PTBTV is among Bay rap’s current onslaught of YouTube-enabled Web TV, a phenomenon so ubiquitous that I’ve been on one or two — stand near Mistah F.A.B. long enough and it’ll happen. Few shows, though, have a host as charismatic as Ray Luv, which might be why the PTBTV site claims millions of visits — not bad for a one-camera, one-mic production. Even Ray seems slightly surprised.

"Most of our hits have been from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America," he says. "Lately, for some reason, there’s been tons from Syria."

PTBTV is a modular affair. Ten-minute interview segments posted on its YouTube channel are interspersed with the occasional video. Bay rappers dominate, and the topics range from concise histories of new talents, such as Eddi Projex, to more topic-driven segments, like Spice 1 discussing being shot in late 2007. But the show also interacts with national artists. Ray’s chance encounter with Chamillionaire, for example, yields a quick interview. In an oversaturated genre, the ability to make the most of such moments distinguishes the successes from the failures.

"In this business, creating content is what you have to do full-time," says Damon Jamal of In Yo Face Films. The technical force behind The Dame Fame Show, Jamal knows what he’s talking about. Dame Fame is actually on TV, broadcast on various Comcast channels throughout the East Bay. Jamal and editor Tiffany J must deliver a 30-minute episode every three to four weeks. The show began when the duo inherited a timeslot on Alameda Comcast from another show that was unable to maintain the pace. A well-respected videomaker for artists such as San Quinn, Jamal easily assembled an episode but wasn’t satisfied with his own attempts to host. Enter Dame Fame.

A behind-the-scenes personality in Bay rap since the mid-1990s, when he provided muscle for the Paraphernalia to the Mob Coalition, Dame Fame once managed ex-3X-member Keak Da Sneak. E-40 confirms that Dame Fame even wrote the hook for 40 and Keak’s massive hit, "Tell Me When to Go" (BME/Warner Bros., 2006). The Dame Fame Show is his first foray into the spotlight, and he’s a natural. The recent 12th episode finds him alongside Dallas’ Dorrough, whose "Ice Cream Paint Job" is one of the hottest rap singles in the country.

"I am the king of street TV," Dame laughs. "I talk to the camera, [and] try to make people feel they’re there with me. And we go where other TV personalities are scared to go." This street sensibility doesn’t preclude coverage of industry events, like the Core DJ Fest in Atlanta, slated for the next episode. Much like that of PTBTV, The Dame Fame Show‘s goal, according to Jamal, is "to showcase Bay talent alongside national talent."

The Dame Fame Show and PTBTV are powered by their creators’ idealism. "We do it for the love!," Dame laughs, and it’s true — he’d be running around the same places with or without a camera rolling.

THE DAME FAME SHOW airs Monday at 9:30 p.m. on Comcast 27 in Oakland. Check listings for other cities. www.vimeo.com/inyofacetv, www.pushinthebay.com

Tears of a thug

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

The first time I interviewed Shaheed Akbar, a.k.a. the Jacka — in December of 2007, during a midnight session for Tear Gas (Artist Records/SMC), due June 16 — he was rolling purple and green weeds plus two types of hash into a Sharpie-sized blunt. I felt like Paul Bowles interviewing Bob Marley. Having known him three years, I can assure you that even in the Bay’s smoky atmosphere, Jacka blazes like a forest fire.

I dwell on this because it’s one facet of the Tear Gas concept, beyond the title’s literal meaning. The perpetual cloud enveloping Jacka is as much a part of his persona as his mobbed out tales of street life, based on experience. Like many artists, the MC enlists his favorite plant in the service of music.

"Weed helps you concentrate on certain things," Jacka observes, during a follow-up interview last month. "Nothing that contains too much multitasking. But if you don’t rap, try writing one; it’s hard as fuck. Weed gets you outside your normal realm so you coming up with crazy shit."

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?


Yet, considering his consumption, Jacka barely raps about weed, or at least no more than most rappers; he has other things on his mind. When I e-mail Paul Wall, one of several big-name features on Tear Gas, to ask why he wanted to work with Jacka, he emphasizes the authenticity of his collaborator’s verses.

"He speaks from experience when he rhymes," Wall writes. "Like he’s rapping from a hustler’s perspective for other hustlers."

The experience Wall cites consists of details which, in the aggregate, might make for improbable fiction. Jacka’s rise to local notoriety at age 18 as a member of C-Bo’s Mob Figaz — whose eponymous debut (Git Paid, 1999) moved something like 140,000 units — is fairly well documented. But the story begins much earlier. Born of 14-year-old parents, young Jacka saw his mother get addicted to crack, and his father go to prison for a decade only to be murdered shortly after release. The result was an impoverished childhood in various hoods in Oakland, Richmond, and finally Pittsburg, where the Mob Figaz began.

"As a kid, everywhere I lived was in the projects," he says. "A nigga’s whole thing is to get out of there." Such ambition led Jacka to start dealing crack as early as age 11.

"Say you’re in school," Jacka continues. "Moms ain’t working. Pops ain’t around. The other kids at school have everything you don’t, as far as clothes and packing they own lunch. All that matters when you’re a kid. You go to junior high and you eating free lunch, people are like, ‘What kind of nigga is you?’ So when you’re from the hood and can hustle, that’s definitely helping your self-esteem. You pulling out wads of cash and motherfuckers who used to laugh at you ain’t got shit. That made me feel hella good."

"Things I had to do to survive is one thing," he says. "But how I feel about it now is another."

BLUNT (OR DEEP) EMOTION


Jacka’s willingness to probe psychological wounds reveals another implication of Tear Gas. Paradoxically or not, in a genre where emotions are usually limited to elation and anger, a large part of Jacka’s appeal is his emphasis on the melancholy ambivalence of street life. It’s subtle, of course, sprinkled into stories of coke-dealing and cap-busting. But contrary to his assertion on the Traxamillion-produced "Girls," an infectious thug-pop remake of the 1986 Beastie Boys classic, Jacka doesn’t just "knock hoes and live it up."

"You can only shoot the breeze so much; you gotta drop a jewel on people," says Jacka, citing 2Pac, to whom he pays homage in "Hope Is for Real." "He had to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing because he had to reach me, the niggas in the hood, but look what you learn from him. So I have to study and get wiser to even make a song."

To be sure, Tear Gas isn’t a sociological treatise; like the blues, it voices the despair of a culture rather than proposing solutions. But such articulation is exactly what makes the music of both Pac and Jacka so powerful.

"Listen to Marvin Gaye," Jacka continues. "I guarantee he’s going to grab your soul. He knows something and could put it together with the music. And what he talked about was the struggle, the pain. I try to make shit that’ll stick to your soul. Like the music my parents used to listen to."

Besides his social consciousness, Jacka’s success rests squarely on quality. Last year, his single "All Over Me" — included on Tear Gas — hit No. 7 on KMEL’s playlist and No. 15 on Billboard’s "Bubbling Under" singles chart. Yet he refused to rush his album to capitalize on this exposure. Instead, he released 11 side projects. Two of them debuted on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart: Drought Season (Bern One), a collaboration with rapper Berner, at No. 55, and The Street Album (Artist Records), a "mixtape album" with KMEL DJ Big Von, at No. 91.

"Motherfuckers like shit that make them think," Jacka says, when asked about his appeal. They also like real albums and, taken as whole, Tear Gas is among the best rap discs in recent history, major or indie. Despite its array of producers and perhaps a few too many guests, Jacka has fashioned a tight, coherent album where every track is vital — an extreme rarity in contemporary hip hop. With its minor-key, exotic flute and harp textures, the new single "Glamorous Lifestyle," also produced by Traxamillion and featuring André Nickatina, epitomizes the overall feel.

"It’s not an easy process unless you really listen to music, and follow all kinds of genres," says Jacka. "Some people just listen to rap, but other music helps you grow as an artist."

THE VOICE


Being a rapper, Jacka’s voice is ultimately his most important asset, an instantly recognizable, rounded, mellow drawl — even when he raps fast — that is never raspy, despite the steady diet of blunts. His melodic, half-sung delivery, moreover, perfectly fits his vocal texture and mournful themes.

"My style really comes from the struggle," he says. "I’m not trying to make you like what I’m saying — I’m trying to get into your soul." This spiritual goal reflects what he credits as his primary influence: chanting the Koran. Surprising or not, given his gangsta themes, smoking, and even drinking, Jacka is a devout Sunni Muslim. It’s the result of a spiritual quest he began at age 9, when he joined the Nation of Islam.

"They showed me how to be black, because I really didn’t know," he explains. "I just knew we were in America, we used to be slaves, but I didn’t know why it was so tough for us. They made me read books that taught me to be proud of who I am. They can be a little strict sometimes, but they have to be; there was so much taken away from us."

When Jacka began intensively reading the Koran, however, he began to question some of the Nation’s teachings. "I realized that what it said in the Koran is what I should do," he says. "Not that plus something else."

The development of Jacka’s faith toward more orthodox Islam accelerated circa 2000. The Mob Figaz’ momentum slowed when C-Bo went to prison and Jacka caught a robbery case that landed him in county jail for a year.

"In jail, I was reading the Koran and realized the Sunni Muslim way is for me," Jacka remembers. "It’s the way I can pray directly to God." Following his release, Jacka took his shahada, declaring his formal adherence to Islam. But as rap money dried up in the Bay during its leanest years (2000-04), he returned to crime at a whole new level, even while beginning his solo career with The Jacka (Akbr Records, 2001).

"When I started working on my album, things changed for me — I really got into the streets," Jacka says. Rap celebrity gave him connections he otherwise would have lacked. "Whatever rap niggas was talking about, we were living," he says with some pride, although he feels he’ll one day have to answer to Allah for his misdeeds. Details of his criminal past are necessarily vague, though if you consider that fellow Mob Figa Husalah was arrested for transporting "over five kilos" of cocaine, a case culminating in his 2006 sentence to 53 months in federal prison, you get the picture.

"The streets are dried up for me," says Jacka. "Once the feds knock your boy, you can’t fuck around for the rest of your life. I’m hot. So I stay with the music now."

"I didn’t take the business as seriously as I should have," he admits. "So I had to start from ground zero." Fortunately, by the time Jacka’s second "official" solo album The Jack Artist (Artist Records, 2005) was ready to drop, the Bay began to heat up again. Even in the heyday of hyphy, the conspicuously non-hyphy Jack Artist sold some 20,000 copies, or "more than all those niggas put together," in the words of the man behind it. Yet despite this success, Tear Gas sounds little like its predecessor. Instead, it reflects Jacka’s artistic growth now that he’s settled down to music full time.

"I wouldn’t trade this for those times again — never," Jacka says, when asked to weigh yesterday and today. "This is something legit we’re doing that’s real. My dream as a child was to do this."

www.myspace.com/thejackamobfigaz

Black man in the cosmos

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AFRO-SURREAL "The Black Man in the Cosmos" wasn’t among the course offerings when I attended the University of California-Berkeley. The class was taught once, in 1971, by musician/composer Sun Ra (1914-93), whose lectures might include topics like the outer space origins of ancient Egypt, conceptualized as a black African culture. This cosmic tradition has a long history, particularly in Chicago, where Ra lived from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, and where Elijah Muhammad used it as the founding mythos of the Nation of Islam. Ra claimed to have influenced the NOI, though he rejected its conclusions, much as he would later criticize the Black Power movement he helped foster as too materialist.

Ra’s "Black Man" lectures — one of which recently surfaced on The Creator of the Universe (Transparency, 2007) — epitomize why he wasn’t taken seriously for so long. Critics who appreciated the severity of Ornette Coleman or the ferocity of Albert Ayler couldn’t accommodate the mischievous mysticism of a man who claimed to come from Saturn. Instead of playing the role of brooding artiste, Ra favored extravagant showmanship, cloaking ultimately stern spiritual messages in language as absurd as the science-fictional garb worn by his Arkestra. His strategies included Joycean deformations of words based on false etymologies and sound play. "Arkestra" itself characteristically mixes the spiritual (Ark of the Covenant) with the quotidian. According to John Szwed’s definitive 1998 biography, Space is the Place, this was how "orchestra" was pronounced in Ra’s native Birmingham, Ala.

Yet the strangeness of Ra’s music may have been the biggest stumbling block. His prodigious output is extremely diverse, continually vioutf8g unquestioned dichotomies. A product of the 1930s big band scene, when he led an orchestra under his terrestrial name Herman "Sonny" Blount, Ra was at the forefront of free jazz, yet he shocked fans and foes alike when, at its height, he began incorporating tight arrangements of swing classics by Fletcher Henderson, Ellington, and others into his sound.

Ra’s lifelong interest in synthesizers — there’s a photo of him with a primitive one in 1941(!) — developed into a command of pure sound. He adapted his style to the nuances of a particular keyboard. The 1970 recording Night of the Purple Moon (Atavistic, 2007), for instance, is a quartet disc on which he plays baroque runs on the Rocksichord, a 1960s electric harpsichord. The 1978 recording Disco 3000 (Art Yard, 2008), a live quartet performance, features Ra’s organ-like drones on the obscure, loop-enabled Crumar Mainman. Unlike some synth wizards, Ra was a virtuoso pianist, with a lightning-fast right hand and a left hand that seemingly bounced around of its own volition. While unafraid to mash the keys with his forearm, Ra’s ambidextrous precision and unorthodox chord voicings — he was unafraid to mash the keys with his forearm — place him among the top players of his time. If he’d worn a suit and stuck to piano, he’d be ranked with the likes of Art Tatum, as is evident from his previously-unreleased recital Solo Piano: Teatro la Fenice Venizia (Golden Years, 2003), possibly the best such recording.

Big bands remained Ra’s ideal, though they were giving way to smaller bop combos by the time he formed the Arkestra in the mid-’50s. Yet his insularity resulted in some of his most original works, discs that defy generic categories, like 1963’s reverb-drenched, proto-psychedelic Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy (Evidence, 1992), 1965’s percussive, minimalist Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, v. 1 (Esp, 2006), or 1967’s Strange Strings (Atavistic, 2007), on which the Arkestra, with no prior experience, plays various non-Western stringed instruments, accompanied by bells, tympani, sheet-metal lightning.

While the atonal Strings may be Ra’s least typical album, it embodies two of his main concerns. On the one hand, he was a tone colorist in the Romantic tradition, seeking unusual instrumentation to produce unique shades. But as that album’s untutored string section suggests, he was a highly conceptual composer — garnering attention from John Cage and others — known for arranging and conducting collective improvisation. Traditional/avant-garde, inside/outside: such oppositions didn’t exist for Ra, who even explored a "low" genre like disco on 1980’s tongue-in-cheek On Jupiter (Art Yard, 2008).

The bewildering amount of Sun Ra reissues stems from his habit of self-recording, which also dates from the 1940s. Had he not done so, albums like Strings and Cosmic Tones wouldn’t have been recorded. Nor would they have been released without his forming El Saturn Records, among the earliest artist-run labels. Given that his technological futurism seemed to stem from his preoccupation with outer space, Ra’s artistic achievements are perhaps inextricably bound to his cosmic consciousness. As with Prince, artistic activity was driven by extramusical concerns, which, if they result in an occasional lapse in "good taste," nonetheless are the ingredients that elevate Ra from artistic excellence to genius. This genius may not have given him more than a subsistence living, but it has made him immortal. Unless, of course, as an inhabitant of Saturn, he already was.

Fill ‘er up

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An anthology of poets who allegedly combine mainstream and avant-garde aesthetics, American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry (WW. Norton and Co., 512 pages, $25.95) — edited by Cole Swensen and David St. John — is an idea whose time hasn’t come. The word "hybrid" is suspect, its trendiness invented by the auto industry to delay real electric cars, hence the cover’s Prius-green font. Like a hybrid car, American Hybrid is half-bad by design, the mainstream filling the role of nonrenewable fossil fuel, the avant-garde serving as electricity. I want an anthology without gas.

Obviously I speak from one side of this divide, having much admiration for Swensen as poet and translator, and little knowledge of St. John. Nor do I care to know a poet whose intro claims "Contemporary American Poetry is thriving on every front" like a hedge-fund brochure. Swensen’s intro, however, is substantial, her account of the post-Victorian split between mainstream and avant-garde poetries — and their uneasy dialectic — both excellent and provocative.

However, her conclusion that the best new poetry has become a hybrid of the two isn’t convincing. The decision to trace a hybrid tradition among older practitioners instead of spotlighting the generation supposedly defined by it only foregrounds the dichotomy. You could make a case for, say, Jorie Graham as hybrid, but turning the page to Barbara Guest, you find no resemblance, despite Swensen’s assertion that Guest is "the quintessential hybrid poet." Guest worked in the tradition of high modernist abstraction. Why project a concept onto her that didn’t exist in her lifetime?

Even John Ashbery doesn’t fit. He hasn’t "moved into the mainstream"; the mainstream moved to him. But mainstream adherents are tiresome. Ralph Angel’s "Someone remembers something that happened a long time /ago. She forgot it, it changed everything" summarizes rather than achieves an Ashberian mode. Only two lines into the first Ashbery selection we find: "The laurel nudges the catalpa." The word "nudges" is comically inapplicable to trees, yet it gradually begins to seem viable — a quick breeze might whip the branches of one against another, like a jab of the elbow to silence an indiscreet remark. Yet this possibility fails to exhaust Ashbery’s indeterminate line, as much what Swensen calls "an event on the page" as the work of more obviously disjunctive poets.

Mainstream poetry is ephemeral. Ever hear of Stephen Phillips? William Watson? Austin Dobson? Some of the most popular mainstream poets in 1890s England, they’re forgotten today. We remember innovators like Yeats. At best mainstream poetry echoes what was avant-garde but is now condoned. It’s the poetry of bourgeois comfort, of received ideas wrapped in clichés. When Albert Goldbarth depicts a black woman "whose rump thumpthumped in walking /like a pair of bongos" he invokes a jungle stereotype as corny as it is offensive. His poems can’t disappear fast enough. At the same time, much avant-garde poetry will disappear. Techniques like constraint writing and manipulation of extant text have become pat workshop formulae, and the formulaic isn’t really avant-garde.

The younger poets I’ve read — in, say, Sara Larsen and David Brazil’s biweekly zine Try — aren’t sweating the hybrid question. They don’t express the assurance of previous generations on the political efficacy of postmodern investigation of language’s structures of power. They’ve seen its impotence in the post-9/11 world. But I don’t see a generational rupture; the avant-garde is the only place where such poets can breathe. New poetry is always avant-garde, and they’re trying something new, not repudiating their elders. Some of these elders are writing the best poetry today, for in art, the new isn’t simply the prerogative of youth. American Hybrid contains many great poems, but I refuse to concede that poets I admire — like Norma Cole, Andrew Joron, even Swensen herself — are related to the mainstream.

The color purp

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G-Stack and Dotrix4000 of the Mekanix arrive for our interview clad in Oakland’s signature purple. The color looms large among the town’s dread-locked youth, owing to the purple weed so popular here: in local slang, assorted leafy greens become "grapes," and references to "Urkel" proliferate for rhyming purposes. Forget Dipset’s Harlem and OutKast’s Atlanta — Oakland is Purple City. And although a nonsmoker, G-Stack is its mayor.

As half of the Delinquents — with partner V-White — Stack went purple early, putting out the 2003 mixtape The Purple Project (Dank or Die). For his solo career, Stack has plunged deeper into the hue with his new persona, Purple Mane. A pot-dealing, wisecracking superhero, Purple Mane has documented his adventures on five discs for Stack’s 4TheStreets label: Welcome to Purple City (2007), Tha Color Purple (2007), George W. Kush (2007), My Purple Chronicles (2008), and Abraham Reekin (2008). These have been among the hottest recent albums in the Bay — no small feat for a rapper whose career began with the Delinquents in 1992.

"I’m trying to stay in this game," Stack says. "I’m a mistake or two away from cats being like, ‘I don’t want to fuck with this dude.’ You can’t think, ‘I’ve been doing this so long — I’m great.’ "

Such realism is rare in the hyperbolic rap world, but Stack prides himself on being real. To invent Purple Mane, moreover, Stack acknowledges inspiration from Mac Dre, who released his own presidential-themed Ronald Dregan (Thizz) shortly before his 2004 murder.

"Dre was dropping numerous records and started coming with characters," recalls Stack. "I’m not trying to finish where he left off, but he was onto something. Without seeming like I’m biting, I’m doing me." This strategy allows the MC to incorporate humor into his music without sacrificing gangsta rap cred.

"Everyone knows I crack lots of jokes," he says, "but I don’t want cats to think I’m a joker. I’m everything I say I am. What we did with Purple Mane was come with my funny side."

If Stack speaks as "we," it’s to credit the role of his team in building his buzz. Besides Chronicles, a solo EP, his compilation-style purple projects have featured key collaborators like Deev da Greed, R&B songstress Naté, and producers Mike D, Quinteis, and the Mekanix. Among these, Dotrix4000 deserves special mention. Largely unheralded, he’s played a vital role in recent Bay rap, having a huge hand in the careers of popular post-hyphy acts J-Stalin and Eddi Projex. Stack’s success makes Dot three for three.

"Dot convinced me to go solo," Stack says. "V-White wasn’t ready for another Delinquents album, and Dot was in my ear, ‘You got fans out there. Why don’t you do something?’ "

In the process of helping to develop the Purple Mane persona, Dot’s been all over Stack’s releases, adding a beat here, a hook there, even demonstrating hitherto hidden rap talents. In the ultimate Bay accomplishment, he ghostwrote Too $hort’s hook on "Purple City," among a handful of prior tracks resurfacing on Stack’s latest, Dr. Purp Thumb, which is due Feb. 17 from SMC.

A full-blown national release, Purp ups the ante: it’s true to the Bay yet expands into more commercial fare and even includes love songs such as "Me N My Chick," an unusually emotional display of passion. "Talk of the Town," with Deev and Stalin, is probably the funkiest groove from this region in years, while Stack’s humor is evident in tracks like "I Fell in Love Wit a Hoe," a sort of AA meeting for gangstas tasting the infidelity they usually dole out. There’s plenty of Purple Mane, but Purp showcases unmediated G-Stack as well.

"I gave them more of me than before," he says. "It’s more Stack meets Purple Mane than Purple Mane meets Stack. You can see how they come together."

www.myspace.com/4thestreets

“Brad Noble: Chaotic Resolve”

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The recent Washington Post obituary of Andrew Wyeth reveals that the figurative painter considered himself an abstract artist, because he didn’t depict but rather evoked a metaphysical vision. This idea is at least as old as 1907, when antimodernist Max Nordau hurled it as an accusation at French symbolist Puvis de Chavannes, and while few use the word abstract with this meaning, I find the conception sympathetic rather than pejorative. If we can call it a lineage, then Brad Noble is part of it. His Beach Girl (2007-08) could be a symbolist painting, evoking rather than dispelling mystery. Is the reclining nude partly buried in the sand, or is she becoming sand? Or is the sand becoming her? Up close, she seems to be eating it. This scene is abstract in that it takes representational elements and recombines them in nonrepresentational ways.

Most of the works in "Chaotic Resolve" lack recognizable landscapes, though Lucid Dream Lab features a woman seated on the ground with her back to us, forearms wrapped in ribbons, gazing into a receding horizon. The landscape’s vagueness is complicated by metallic paint that shows through, and many works have a metallic gleam impossible to capture in reproduction. Quagmire features a nude man in profile against a brown surface so shiny it looks lacquered. His back is stooped; thorny vines wind up his legs. His penis is obscured by one arm, but a lone tendril of hair curls out from between his legs at crotch-level: this, like many of Noble’s images, is fraught with uncertainty, lifting as if erect, then curving down impotent, then circling back on itself, suggesting infinity. Exacerbating the whole is the man’s cracking body, his missing brainpan, and the hatchet wounds dividing his neck. A couple pieces, such as Third Party, are less successful, but on the whole, this art is of productive opacity, subtly in tune with the host gallery’s orientation toward surrealist abstraction.

BRAD NOBLE: CHAOTIC RESOLVE Through Feb. 24. Mon.–Fri., 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Weinstein Gallery, 301 Geary, SF. (415) 362-8151. www.weinstein.com

Herself redefined

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although I don’t enjoy real lakes

Barbara Guest, Biography

Barbara Guest (1920-2006) once told me she shared a taxi in Manhattan with Marianne Moore. Seeing Guest unsuccessfully hail a cab, Moore impulsively instructed the driver of the one she was in to pull over and pick up the young poet. Moore didn’t know Guest was a poet, and Guest was too intimidated to confess it, though they had a pleasant chat before Moore dropped her off at her destination.

There’s something fitting about this encounter. Although she most strongly identified with H.D. among modernist poets — even writing 1984’s still-standard H.D. biography Herself Defined — Guest is perhaps more like Moore in terms of her relative position within the New York School. Of the original members — including John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch — she is the most obviously difficult. Unlike her relatively postmodern colleagues, she primarily engaged with a high modernist aesthetic attuned to both the arch formalism of The Waste Land-era T.S. Eliot and the strident irrationality of surrealism. The result was a truly singular aesthetic, yielding, as The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest (Wesleyan University Press, $40) demonstrates, one of the most radical bodies of work in 20th century literature.

Difficulty is, of course, a vexed question; poetry’s perceived difficulty frightens off even readers of the most abstruse fiction. Some of Guest’s poetry is admittedly taxing — a book like Rocks on a Platter (1999) is nearly impenetrable to me, despite my appetite for such work. But the bulk of Guest’s writing is difficult only if you assume the goal of poetry is to make sense, which it isn’t. The greatest poetry exceeds meaning, suggesting more than it says, suspending language’s sense-making capacity in favor of the word as thing. If you forego the demand that poetry deliver a coherent picture or scenario, Guest becomes much less difficult. You simply follow, without worrying where you’re headed.

In Symbiosis (2000), for example, one of Guest’s increasingly abstract later works, we find these three lines: "In no climate whatsoever / noise traveling up the tower<0x2009>/ bronze green in the tournament … " Quotation out of context hardly distorts the passage because it’s never clear what the context is, the lines appearing apropos of nothing before or after. They remain stubbornly themselves, resisting meaning. You can propose a tower "in no climate," but the very definition of "climate" presupposes its ubiquity; everywhere has a climate. More pertinent to Guest’s concerns are the subtle musical echoes between "noise traveling" and "bronze green," or the disposition of the word "tower," scrambled throughout "whatsoever" and translated into French as the "tour" of "tournament." These are hardly Guest’s greatest lines, but they indicate some of her procedures. The poems are generated less by "the real" than by words themselves, their use as material objects, which is what I mean by "the word as thing."

To see early work like The Location of Things (1960-62) and The Blue Stairs (1968) back in print is thrilling, while the bird’s eye view of Guest’s career is revealing: nearly half the collection was written in the last 10 years of her life, indicating the mastery she attained. The array of forms is remarkable — just when she seems to embark permanently into a Mallarméan scattering of phrases across the page, she shifts to the microfictional prose poems of 1999’s The Confetti Trees. A short section of new work at the end suggests yet more possibilities. But as the Collected Poems shows, Guest had done enough.

Purple canon

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One of the hot discs in Oakland back in 2004 was In Thugz We Trust (Rap-A-Lot/Asylum) by Thug Lordz, a duo of mob music veterans Yukmouth and C-Bo. It was dope but it underscored a problem: all the big Bay-associated artists established careers in the ’90s, before radio play and major label action dried up. During the pre-hyphy drought, it was tough to achieve any fame outside the hood.

Fast-forward to post-hyphy 2008: the canonical list of Bay Area rappers has expanded considerably. Despite receiving no local airplay through an ongoing dispute with KMEL musical director Big Von Johnson and continued hedging by Atlantic to release his album, Mistah FAB managed to dent national consciousness with his hook on Snoop’s single "Life of Da Party." The increasing clout of SF independent label SMC raised newer acts Beeda Weeda and J-Stalin to the regional stardom necessary to go further. Winner of the Guardian‘s reader choice poll for hip-hop, Beeda had one of the most successful discs of the year with Da Thizzness, while Stalin’s Gas Nation topped the rap best-seller list at Rasputin Music the week of its release, Sept. 23. Other acts like Eddi Projex have cracked the airwaves to remain hot, while the Jacka — whose career began at the tail end of the ’90s as a member of C-Bo’s Mob Figaz — had the biggest local single of the year, "All Over Me," from his highly anticipated album Tear Gas, due in March.

The older acts haven’t disappeared, however, as witnessed by new discs from San Quinn and E-40. A notable development of the past two years has been the solo career of former Delinquent G-Stack. Taking a page from Mac Dre’s book, Stack has developed new personae like Purple Mane and George W. Kush to release four purple-themed compilations, plus a solo EP, preparatory to his SMC full-length, Dr. Purp Thumb, slotted for February. Along the way, he’s begun developing newer acts like Deev Da Greed, a co-owner of Stack’s 4 the Streets Entertainment and, along with Qoolceo and Tay Peezy, a member of the HEEM Team.

"I can rap but that wasn’t my dream," Deev confesses at the Grill studio in Emeryville. "When we opened the label, I was in the lab [the studio] a bunch, so I was, like, let me do a verse." Despite these casual origins, Deev acquired serious buzz this year with his effortless flow — he just floats over any beat — and clever wordplay, co-signing Stack’s fourth comp, Abraham Reekin (4 the Streets).

The accidental rise of Deev illustrates the difference four years has made. The glacial pace of change during the pre-hyphy period has become torrential as fresh acts like Stevie Jo, Philthy Rich, and Yung Moses continue to bubble to the surface. This is partly technological — the fruit of a Pro Tools and YouTube generation — but it’s also inspirational. Unlike the first half of this decade, there’s a place to rise to. The prospect of attaining fame as a Bay Area rapper is still unreasonably difficult, but FAB and others have at least proved the prospect still exists. (Garrett Caples)

GARRETT CAPLES’ TOP 10


1. J-Stalin, Gas Nation (Livewire/Thizz/SMC)

2. Beeda Weeda, Da Thizzness (PTB/Thizz/SMC)

3. G-Stack, My Purple Chronicles (4 the Streets)

4. The Jacka, Fed-X, and AP.9, Mob Trial III (Sumo)

5. Mistah FAB, Playtime Is Over (Demolition Men)

6. Shady Nate, The Graveyard Shift (Demolition Men)

7. G-Stack and Deev Da Greed, Abraham Reekin (4 the Streets)

8. Livewire Da Gang, Pay Ya’self or Spray Ya’self (Livewire)

9. Ise Lyfe, The Prince Cometh (7even89ine)

10. San Quinn, From a Boy to a Man (Done Deal/SMC)


>>MORE YEAR IN MUSIC 2008

Boys to men

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Longevity in rap is the exception, not the rule, but those exceptions are glorious: witness E-40, who dates his career from his 1988 self-released 12-inch as a member of MVP. After 11 years with Jive Records, 40 signed to Lil Jon’s Warner Bros.-distributed BME for his 2006 Gold-certified album, My Ghetto Report Card. Now the 41-year-old Vallejo veteran has returned with The Ball Street Journal, which dropped Nov. 24, a Monday, to increase first week sales.

The same day, San Francisco independent SMC released From a Boy to a Man, the long-awaited seventh solo album by Fillmore legend San Quinn, who began recording in 1991 at age 14. "My competition was Kriss Kross," he told me in a phone interview several days earlier, neatly putting his endurance in perspective.

Though Quinn, now 31, released a handful of discs in his late teens on JT the Bigga Figga’s then-Priority-distributed Get Low Records, his success has always depended on his loyal local fanbase. Fueled by his regional radio hit, "Hell Yeah," his last disc, The Rock (SMC, 2005), is his biggest seller yet, moving more than 20,000 copies.

Yet despite good independent numbers and 17 years in the game, the powerfully deep-voiced Quinn is still hungry. "I’ve yet to blow all the way up," he said. "I want to be known worldwide, and I’m still slowly climbing that mountain."

THE BALLITICS OF RAPPIN’


Quinn makes a good point: if your audience keeps expanding, you can’t be said to have fallen off. A major label rapper like Yung Joc may have debuted with a triple-putf8um single — "It’s Goin Down" — in 2006, but where is he now, let alone 17 years from now? The overinflated major label economy of scale means Joc could sell 200,000 and still be a failure, whereas Quinn’s independent grinding has kept him viable with only a tenth of that figure. I somehow suspect Joc’s artistic legacy won’t compare with Quinn’s in terms of length or depth, regardless of sales.

"Lotta these new dudes is ringtone rappers," E-40 remarks on BSJ‘s "Tell It Like It Is." After 15 years of major-label activity, 40 knows whereof he speaks. He pioneered the "rapper as independent label head" model with his Sick Wid It Records, forcing the industry to take notice when his 1993 EP, The Mailman (Sick Wid It), debuted at no. 13 on Billboard‘s R&B chart with no major-label distribution deal.

While signed to Jive, 40 frequently complained the imprint never gave him that superstar push. He knew he could be bigger, and in an era of shrinking album sales, the fact that the well-promoted Ghetto Report Card scored 40 his first Gold since 1998’s The Element of Surprise (Sick Wid It/Jive) proved him right. (His 1995 Gold album for Jive, In a Major Way, went Putf8um in 2002, showing more artistic longevity than many an instant Putf8um disc.)

The push is not without its price, however. Don’t get me wrong: BSJ, to me, is clearly the best major-label rap disc of the year. Like every such recording, it’s too long — and where Jive gave 40 free rein, the corporate hand of Warner Bros. is evident. For example, the Akon collection, "Wake It Up," is an admittedly catchy pop single though it sounds more like an Akon song showcasing 40. Similarly, the marquee power of Snoop Dogg can’t disguise the fact that his verse on "Pain No More" sucks, which is a shame, since 40’s verse rocks.

But overall, BSJ is a more distinctively E-40 disc than Ghetto, inasmuch as its tempo and feel varies more than the hyphy-fueled onslaught of its predecessor. (BSJ had 12 producers, where Ghetto had five.) "Earl," an atypical slice of moody mob music from Lil Jon, is the most classic-sounding E-40 track in years, while the more spiritual "Pray for Me," produced by longtime 40-collaborator Bosko, is a close second.

"It’s got an old-school, 1989/1990-kinda feel," said 40 by phone a month ago. "But I mixed it all up for the new generation." The new generation, to be sure, is much in evidence: in the strong contributions from 40’s producer/son Droop-E and rapper/protégé Turf Talk, especially the hyphied-out mob banger "Got Rich Twice." Rick Rock’s three spacious, sample-laden beats are, as usual, way ahead of their time. The rapper’s collaboration with Too $hort, "Sliding Down the Pole," might sound like old times, but the whistling Willy Will beat is as fresh a post-hyphy groove as anything on BSJ.

GROWING PAINS


Where BSJ is like a big-budget cinematic thriller, Quinn’s From a Boy is more like an autobiographical novel, with an emphasis on storytelling and a socially responsible undercurrent.

"If you want to know how a young black man feels in San Francisco, you can tap into this record," said Quinn. Yet his disc belies this everyman characterization. It’s saturated with Quinn’s personal history, from his mother’s struggles as a single parent on the title track, to his relationship with his sibling, Fillmore rapper Bailey, on "My Brother," to his advice to his 11-year-old son, Lil’ Quinn, who raps alongside his dad on "Billionaire." "Billionaire" displays a very different conception of the uses of wealth than most street rap: "College education for your children," Quinn raps. "That’s what we call livin’."

The extraordinary thing about From a Boy is how Quinn holds its various themes together, sounding neither preachy nor hypocritical. While nominally a gangsta rapper, Quinn is much more a "kill you if you fuck with me" than a "kill you because I enjoy it" MC. His crack-dealing persona is there — as on the infectious single "Rockin’ Up Work" — but the overwhelming impression the full-length leaves is cautionary. Opening with actual KTVU sound clips about a deadly Fillmore shooting, "They’re All Waitin’ on Me" reminds me of Paris in its depiction of the urban war zone and is much more typical of the album’s vibe.

Quinn admits he’s not the best beat-picker, and given how incendiary the Traxamillion-produced bonus track, "Do Ya Thizzle," is, I wish there were a couple of more A-list collaborations. Quinn’s protégé, Filipino producer Dexbeats, is a great find, and the songs are so well-written, they render such second-guessing moot.

All told, both 40 and Quinn have reaffirmed their OG status in Bay Area rap. It’ll be interesting to see whether BSJ will equal the success of 40’s first Warner Bros. disc and whether the increasingly national visibility of SMC will get Quinn any extra regional play.

Trackademics

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"You have different buzzes in different circles," Trackademicks says. "But when everyone’s talking, it sounds like one big noise."

Few know this better than the 27-year-old rapper and producer born Jason Valerio. In San Francisco and Berkeley, the Alameda native is known as a conscious hip-hop performer whose sound embraces electronica,’80s R&B, and new wave. In Oakland, where we’re chatting in his Cool Collar Scholar Productions studio, Trackademicks is perhaps better known for production, making beats for hood rappers like J-Stalin and Mistah FAB.

"FAB put me on," Tracks says. "I gave him a beat disc. He called back hella juiced. I started running around with him, meeting everybody out here." FAB, however, disputes this account.

"He put me on," FAB says, laughing. He used six of the beats on Son of a Pimp (Thizz, 2005). "He gave the album that twist where people will always remember it."

"He reminds me of the Neptunes," Stalin says. "He ain’t the average hip-hop producer. He produces techno."

Though he finds it imprecise, Trackademicks is used to the "techno" tag.

"I don’t do techno," he says. "But people aren’t sure what to call it. What I produce for myself I don’t give to people. I match what I do with what they do. I won’t give someone a track like, ‘Go rap on this,’ and they’ve never rapped over 160 BPM. There’s a right way to do everything."

This approach is evident on Track’s midtempo number on Stalin’s new Gas Nation (Livewire/SMC), "Millionaire Status," which highlights futuristic soundwaves atop the ’80s-style 808 drums that characterize Stalin’s music — a perfect blend of what they do. Like Tracks says on his own song "Grocery Bills," "I get mob when I make instrumentals."

Even as he’s branched out nationally, producing for Kid Sister and Phonte of Little Brother, among others, Trackademicks is primarily an artist, working solo and with his crew, the Honor Roll. While shopping for an album deal, he’s about to drop his first official solo release — a 12-inch, "Enjoy What You Do"/"Topsidin’" — on the Fool’s Gold label. With its improbable throwback chorus — from Wham’s "Wham Rap" — and an electronica/go-go-style groove, "Enjoy" is one of the most original hip-hop tunes I’ve heard lately. Its quotation of Digital Underground’s "Doowhutchalike" is apt: like DU, Tracks combines streetwise knowledge with more uplifting themes.

"My aim is to build bridges," he says. "I’m black and Filipino. I feel at home in a lot of places.

"My goal is to have every kind of people at my shows," he continues. "Not just every race — let’s go deeper. It’s about class, about culture. People say they want everybody, but how are you speaking to them? I’m taking steps to speak to different audiences." Part of his success has been avoiding preachiness in favor of celebrating the typical joys of rap — girls, cruisin’ around, looking sharp, having skills.

"Kids believe the hype," he says. "You should let them know — you need a job to live. We have a responsibility as artists to report the truth, all sides of it. The important thing is to articulate, to communicate all facets of a person as opposed to one thing."

As for his own multifaceted artistic life, Trackademicks is content. "I don’t worry anymore. Real recognize real, game recognize game — that’s how it’s going to be."

www.trackademia.blogspot.com

Surrealism’s island

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REVIEW Since his death in 1966, André Breton has received more than his fair share of knocks. I’ve heard both critics and poets call him "fascist," though if pressed, they can only cite Breton’s sometimes dogmatic leadership of the surrealist movement. Such loose talk is tiresome and ahistorical. A staunch Communist, Breton was nonetheless the first to denounce the totalitarian Stalin when the rest of the French Left turned a blind eye. He never went for Mao like the Tel Quel crowd. As leader of a left-wing movement opposed to Hitler, he was on the Nazis’ Parisian to-do list, and he only narrowly avoided arrest by Vichy authorities in Marseille, escaping to America aided by the efforts of Varian Fry (a sort of Schindler for lefty artists). Breton’s even occasionally criticized for fleeing the Nazis — as if it contradicted his principles — though his accusers tend to lead safe, academic lives. As we see in Martinique: Snake Charmer (University of Texas Press, 96 pages, $19.95), a chronicle of Breton’s stopover between Marseille and NYC, exile’s no picnic.

Breton had his flaws, of course, notably sexism and homophobia, yet even these were complicated, given the number of women and gays within the surrealist group. Most of his positions were politically progressive, particularly his anti-colonialism and anti-racism. Where much of the modernist avant-garde (Pound, Eliot, Marinetti, etc.) was avowedly racist, surrealism was the only movement that welcomed black artists as colleagues and innovators. In Martinique, in reference to the poet Aimé Césaire (who died only a few months ago, at 94), Breton writes: "It is a black man who handles the French language as no white man today is capable of handling it

. . . who is the one guiding us today into the unexplored." (Similarly, Breton would declare the Haitian Magloire Saint-Aude the most important surrealist poet of the post-war period.) Where more sympathetic artists like the Cubists exoticized Africans, Breton identifies with Césaire, "unable to distinguish his will from my own." This might seem naïve in today’s political climate, yet the testimonials by the Martinican and Haitian writers who met Breton in the ’40s — translated in Michael Richardson’s 1996 book Refusal of the Shadow — suggest the feeling was mutual. Maybe it’s not so naïve, for surrealism stretches the limits of the possible.

Like many surrealist books, Martinique is a hybrid work, alternating between "lyrical language" and "the language of simple information," reflecting "intolerable malaise on the one hand and radiance on the other." That Breton could still pursue the poetic marvelous under such trying conditions — on arrival, he’s thrown into a concentration by the pro-Vichy regime and, once freed, is constantly shadowed by police — is extraordinary. He was fascinated by Martinique’s natural beauty, celebrating, for example, the effect of rainfall on the island in surrealist terms: "If the light is the least bit veiled, all the sky’s water pierces its canopy, from a rigging of vertigo, water continually shakes itself, tuning its tall green-copper organ pipes." Not even the uncertainty of his fate could stop Breton’s imagination.

This edition of Martinique — the first in English — is not without drawbacks, the most egregious being the poor reproductions of André Masson’s drawings, seemingly scanned from the French edition. But the translation is admirable. In a society which falsely imagines itself "post-racial," Martinique is essential reading. *

Independence day

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Labels come and go. Not long ago, Moedoe and Frisco Street Show were among the most important outlets for Bay Area rap. Now both manufacture energy drinks instead: Hyphy Juice and Hunid Racks, respectively. Rap frequently favors money over artistry, but eliminating the art entirely is a bit much. To pose the Jacka’s musical question, "What happened to comin’ the dopest?"

The answer may be found at 21st and Mission streets, home of SMC Recordings.

"Rap’s a hustle because of where it’s from," 26-year-old co-owner and A&R head Will Bronson says. "I understand that, but in the end it’s still about making good music."

A shocking philosophy in today’s industry, but SMC makes it work. Not only has the company released some of the biggest recent Bay rap discs — including 2007’s Da Baydestrian by Mistah FAB and Da Bidnes by PSD, Keak, and Messy Marv — but it’s also building a national roster. Atlanta acquisitions like Pastor Troy and Killer Mike, whose current I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind 2 received critical acclaim, hitting No. 16 on Billboard’s rap chart, have raised the label’s nationwide profile.

"It’s going well," Killer Mike reports. "Major labels spend money on you, but never listen. SMC entertains every idea." This includes everything from letting Mike executive-produce his disc to approving his risky lead single, "Bang," attacking what he sees as the present lameness of Atlanta hip-hop.

"In rap it’s OK to be yourself," Bronson says. "No matter what level they’re on, the artists we sign are loved by their fans. Our records sell longer due to their quality."

SMC’s success wasn’t overnight: it evolved from late ’90s imprint UTR, whose founders included SMC co-owner Ralph Tashjian. The industry veteran long dreamed of starting a label here in his hometown. When his partners bailed, Tashjian brought in former UTR intern Bronson to continue as the Navarre-distributed Sumday Entertainment, whose successes included Keak’s Copium (2003), co-released with Moedoe, and Messy Marv’s Disobayish (2004). Switching distributors in 2005, when Bronson became a full partner, prompted another name change.

"Independent distribution is the future," Tashjian says. "Independent distributors are all successful while the majors are dying. As that began, Universal launched its own independent distribution, Fontana. We were one of their first labels. We had no obligation to Navarre, but for appearances we changed the name to SMC: Sumday Music Corp."

Such powerful distribution and an artist-friendly environment — artists own their masters, for example, which the label licenses — have helped SMC score bigger acts. It’s even invaded New York City, signing Capone-N-Noreaga for their third album. In a late-breaking development, SMC has now entered into a joint venture with the legendary Rakim, though details have yet to be announced.

Such moves, unprecedented for an independent Frisco hip-hop label, come at an interesting juncture in the Bay’s post-hyphy moment. There are cross-regional promotional opportunities; Mess, for example, is on Killer Mike’s disc, which includes an ad directing listeners to Mess’ upcoming project. Most important, as it goes national, SMC has reaffirmed its local role, partnering with Thizz Entertainment to launch two series, Town Thizzness for Oakland acts and Thizz City for SF, at the consumer-friendly price of $9.99. Town Thizzness has already released the two hands-down best local discs this year, Beeda Weeda’s Da Thizzness and J-Stalin’s Gas Nation. And the Bay isn’t confined to these series, as the upcoming San Quinn album, From a Boy to a Man, due Nov. 25, attests.

These series, Bronson says, "testify to our commitment to the Bay. We’re in SF so we need a marquee Bay Area artist. We need to develop the new Quinns, new Messy Marvs, in some way." It’s about time someone made that commitment.

We be clubbin’? Just barely

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One night around 11 this spring, I stepped out of a cab at Sixth and Mission streets, only to enter a chaotic scene. Enhancing the block’s usual charms — destitute dudes in wheelchairs, crack enthusiasts, an old man in a denim skirt clutching a baguette — was a row of police cruisers parked in the street. Officers roamed the block, herding people around.

Had I stumbled onto a grim tragedy? Nope. I was just trying to catch a hip-hop show. Like the other 150 people waiting outside Club Six, I was hoping to get into KUSH, a party hosted by the Demolition Men. My chances seemed slim. I was on the guest list, but the list was "closed." So I stood in the long but well-behaved line. Security yelled at us to keep on the sidewalk, though the sidewalk ended well before the line did. Finally a guard bellowed at us to leave.

Half the line drifted away. The rest remained, texting friends inside the club and trying to devise a way in. Soon, with a combination of threats and cajolery, police and security began clearing the sidewalk around the club. A short, powerfully built man pleaded with stragglers, the way tough guys plead with you not to force them to kick your ass. Someone addressed him. He was Angel Cruz, Club Six’s owner, whom I’d interviewed for this story by phone. I introduced myself. He signaled a guard, and suddenly I was inside.

If this was New York City or Los Angeles, I might have felt the smugness engendered by such special treatment. But this was San Francisco, and all I felt was weariness. The club had devoted two rooms to the party, yet only one was full. Still, the vibe was friendly, and Jacka tore it up with his radio smash, "All Over Me." Although I heard some dudes got salty over the guest list, there were no arrests.

Sadly, such scenes are typical. Actually, we were lucky: I’ve seen cops shut down shows entirely over trifling incidents, usually ones occurring outside the club. This state of affairs affects more than the club-goers. Owners make less at the bar, promoters make less at the gate, and performers have fewer places to perform. Hip-hop, in its myriad forms, is one of the most popular genres on earth, and San Francisco is a world-class city. Yet this town seems hostile toward this musical nightlife with such revenue-generating potential. Why?

Naturally there’s no simple answer, and even investigating is difficult. Owners don’t want to alienate the police, promoters don’t want to alienate owners, and the San Francisco Entertainment Commission wants cooperation among all concerned. Few people I interviewed would name names or particular events, and some would only speak off the record, due to the delicate web of professional relationships involved. Even so, common issues emerge.

"Hip-hop is synonymous with fights and shootings, to authority figures," said Desi Danganan, whose Poleng Lounge is one of the few venues committed to the music. "The police are very hesitant about any club that plays hip-hop. That was one of the first things that came up, ‘Are you playing hip-hop?’<0x2009>"

The association between hip-hop and violence is nothing new: violence is the theme of many raps. Yet this is hardly the case with all hip-hop. The Bay Area in particular has produced an abundance of progressive, nonviolent lyricists, from veterans Hieroglyphics to up-and-comer Trackademicks. Yet the distinction is lost on the city and the police, according to Fat City general manager Hiroshi Naruta. "They don’t know the difference between hyphy and backpacker," he said.

Unlike the Panhandle-based Polang, Fat City is in the SoMa District, a longtime site of contention between police and clubs. As a result, the venue is shying away from booking hip-hop. "I want to," Naruta said. "But I don’t want pressure from the city or SFPD."

"Pressure," of course, is a nebulous concept and hard to substantiate, but according to John Wood, political director of the SF Late Night Coalition, there are typical tactics. "If the police feel your venue is creating a nuisance, they show up every night, check your permits, walking into your venue, upsetting your customers," he said. "They do frequent inspections with the fire department and the building department, and get you for every little violation. Short of suspending permits and filing lawsuits, there’s lots of ways city bureaucracy can make it difficult to do business."

But just how much of a "nuisance" do hip-hop shows create? Are they really that violent? No more than other genres, according to Robert Kowal, whose Sunset Promotions has brought everyone from Grandmaster Flash to Jurassic 5 to SF. "The city has safety as its primary concern," he acknowledged. "Occasionally some shows have problems the police have to deal with. Almost without exception that label gets thrown at hip-hop, when most events, including hip-hop, are very cool."

"Right now there’s a gun problem in SF," Kowal continued. "Instead of addressing that, the city wants to blame entertainment and specifically hip-hop. But violence is rare inside the venue itself."

Wood concurred with this assessment. "There have been incidents where there were shootings," he said, "not in the clubs, but a block away, that may have possibly involved people who were at the club. Frequently police will blame the club for incidents in the neighborhood."

An SFPD spokesman, Sgt. Steven Mannina, wouldn’t respond to this contention. It’s worth noting that much of SoMa can get rough, even during the day. To the contrary, Kowal believes venues like Club Six have improved the tone of the neighborhood: "Angel Cruz deserves a lot of credit. That Club Six is open four nights a week has enabled other bars and restaurants to open around it. That area has been somewhat revitalized."

Wood suggests an influx of new neighbors may, in fact, be the main issue. "The city’s changing," he explained. "It’s older demographically, wealthier, more harried, and professional. Aside from hip-hop and violence, people are less tolerant about noise young people create." Yet that lack of tolerance among the condo crowd may also be rooted in fear. "Neighbors sometimes freak out when a club is bringing large groups of minorities into the neighborhood," Wood added, "whether they’re behaving or not."

That assessment was echoed, mostly off the record, by many I interviewed. But veteran hip-hop commentator Davey D didn’t pull punches. "They just don’t want black people there," he said. "For a city that prides itself on being progressive, when it comes to nightlife, it has the most reactionary policies that seem based around race, using words like ‘urban’ as cover."

Regardless of hip-hop’s alleged role in violence, this spring the city attempted to deal with the issue via two pieces of legislation: one required a hefty $400 permit per show, and the other was an anti-loitering law, empowering police to clear the area around a club. Both proposals were bad ideas: the former threatened to stifle local entertainment, and in an era of eroding civil liberties, the latter promised to give police discretion to arrest people just for being in the club’s vicinity. Even more disturbing is Sgt. Mannina’s assertion in April that "this is an enforcement strategy around clubs that field operations have already launched." How can this be, if it was not yet a law? "I thought it was already in place," he said.

Clearly the police act as though it is, given what I witnessed outside Club Six. In the meantime, it’s tough to understand why SF hip-hop fans must, for instance, travel to Petaluma to see local acts like Andre Nickatina. "You want to know the solution?" a club owner asked, off the record and out of frustration. "There is no solution."

“Conflux Vignettes”

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REVIEW Being unpatriotic, I spent the Fourth of July observing indoor fireworks at the opening of the group show, "Conflux Vignettes," at Mama Buzz Café’s Buzz Gallery. I was lured in by poet-painter Brian Lucas, whose 2006 book, Light House (Meeting Eyes Bindery), is out of print but obtainable secondhand. Like his longer poems, which accumulate as aphoristic remarks, Lucas’ abstractions accrue in obsessively worked increments. Whereas in his earlier work these parts formed discrete centers of interest, his more recent paintings, like the acrylic Correspondence, reveal a more unified sense of composition, their lush brightness influenced by his six-year stay in Thailand, from 2001 to 2007. Lucas’ paintings have the complexity of the finest abstraction, with an illusion of depth hitherto unrealized, and suggest equally the cosmos and the lotus.

Also here are odd assemblages by Daniel Glendening, black mat-board cutouts overlaid with rainbow-colored gouache and acrylic. The edges are shaped alternatively as pistols, cacti, and AK-47s. The most ambitious, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, includes all three — its overall shape suggestive of the southwestern United States and a good metaphor for a country refusing gun control. Paper squares repeating the title are affixed by copper nails driven through the piece and into the wall. (If you buy the work, Glendening offers to come nail it to your wall at home.)

Rounding things out are large paper-on-canvas pieces by Julie Oppermann, executed in watercolor and acrylic, yet defying most viewers’ conceptions of watercolor. The concentric circles, overlaying each other yet slightly askew, create the moiré effect, hovering like a Duchamp rotorelief without the literal motion. Tree-Cells, a smaller series in mostly red shades of oil, resembles something like exploded alligators — in a good way. All in all, a well-curated grouping, indicating why the space has its buzz.

CONFLUX VIGNETTES: BRIAN LUCAS, DANIEL GLENDENING, AND JULIE OPPERMANN Through July 31. Mon.–Thurs., 7 a.m.–9 p.m.; Fri., 7 a.m.–10 p.m.; Sat., 8 a.m.–10 p.m.; Sun., 8 a.m.–9 p.m. Mama Buzz/Buzz Gallery, 2318 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 465-4073, www.mamabuzzcafe.com

Back Fasheezy

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After three and a half years chasing rappers for the Guardian, I’ve met, photographed, and finally interviewed Keak da Sneak, but never all at once. Getting ahold of E-40 is a breeze compared to tracking down Keak. One of the only Bay artists whose singles routinely play on KMEL, even hitting number one locally with 2005’s "Super Hyphy," Keak is perpetually hot and therefore elusive. When I recently interviewed Keak by phone, he was a continent away in NYC, under the watchful eye of Koch Records executives eager to promote his new album, Deified.

The release of Deified on Koch, one of the country’s biggest independent imprints, is significant not just for Keak but for the entire Bay Area. While major-label discs by Mistah FAB and Clyde Carson continue to languish, Deified could be the breakthrough everyone’s hoping for. With his diehard local following, plus an instantly recognizable, burbling, volcanic growl spewing out new slang like "hyphy" and "fasheezy," Keak has a real shot at shattering the glass ceiling frustrating the Bay’s national ambitions.

"My fans and the Bay are behind me, but I want to see the world’s reaction," Keak said. "I wanted to make this album much more than a Bay Area album."

Naturally, the question arises: where was this album in ’05 when "Super Hyphy" was peaking? Originally released on the Rah Records compilation Dopegame 2, "Super Hyphy" was such an unexpected hit that Keak had no album ready to follow. Moreover, in 2006, after making national noise on E-40’s "Tell Me When to Go," Keak was in a contractual dispute he claims scuttled major-label interest.

"Right after ‘Tell Me When to Go’ and the hyphy movement, when that wave was going, people expected me to drop," he recalled. "I had [Universal Records executive] Sylvia Rome come to my house and try to give me $1 million. Someone claimed I had a contract with them, but they never sent a copy. They bluffed us for a year, so I missed that deal."

Besides holding up his own career, the delay, Keak feels, also squandered hyphy’s momentum. "The introduction wasn’t right because my album didn’t drop," said the rapper. "40 opened the door with that single, but he still didn’t introduce hyphy. He introduced the hyphy movement."

"But hyphy is a ritual. It’s a Bay way of life," Keak continued, referring to the dread-shaking, ghostriding ghetto culture that shows no sign of waning. "This is what we do every day. So hyphy has never died. The movement might have died because we ain’t sticking together."

Of course, in order to have impact, Deified needs to be tight, and Keak’s releases haven’t always been top-shelf. While there’s been no shortage of Keak titles during the last few years, Keak claims only three previous solo discs — Sneakacydal (Moedoe, 1999), Hi-Tek (Moedoe, 2001), and Copium (Sumday, 2003) — disowning much of his extensive catalog.

"People said they had me under contract and were just gathering up songs," he complained. "The deals weren’t the right deal, so when I fell back on that shit, these guys put albums out."

Fortunately, Deified is exactly what Keak wants, down to the cover art. Produced almost entirely by Modesto’s Young Mozart, responsible for Keak’s popular "That Go," which is present in remix form and features Prodigy and Alchemist, the album contains the burgeoning radio single, "Nothing Without You," with Messy Marv — a rare love song for both rappers and a good indication of how well-rounded an artist Keak has become. Most important, while local rappers often distance themselves from the region’s sound when attempting to go national, Deified is unmistakably a contemporary Bay Area album, even as it looks back to classic mob music.

Since his deal with Koch involves just one album, the disc could be the springboard back into major label consideration. "I didn’t want to get tied up for three or four years," Keak concluded. "I want to drop this album, see how it do, then talk to the majors again." Here’s hoping Deified leads to that conversation.

The house that Hiero built

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**Update: The Paid Dues Independent Hip Hop Festival has been cancelled. See below for more details.

I’m not accustomed to receiving rappers at my home at 8 a.m. — an hour most rappers have only heard of — but I made an exception for Tajai Massey, member of Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics. A self-confessed early riser and the first MC to ever accept my offer of a cup of coffee, Massey is a busy man.

While gearing up for the Hieroglyphics’ Freshly Dipped tour, which kicks off June 14 with the Paid Dues Festival at the Berkeley Community Theatre, the lanky 33-year-old head of the group’s Hiero Imperium label was about to head to Seattle for a spot date with his new rock outfit, Crudo, with Dan the Automator and ex-Faith No More frontman Mike Patton. Meanwhile Massey’s been juggling two upcoming projects, one of which he hopes to release in the fall: a new, self-produced Hieroglyphics disc and the fourth studio release by Souls of Mischief, produced by legend Prince Paul. In the interim, he’s prepping fellow Souls-member Opio’s second solo album, Vulture’s Wisdom, Vol. 1 (Hiero Imperium), for July.

Yet none of this accounts for our meeting. Our conversation instead focused on Massey’s other job: overseeing his own imprint within Hiero, Clear Label. Though begun in 1999 to release his SupremeEx trip-hop collaboration with Hiero Web designer StinkE, Projecto: 2501, Clear Label really established itself circa 2005 with two artists of a very different sort: Shake Da Mayor of "Stunna Shades" fame and Beeda Weeda, whose 2006 full-length, Turfology 101, yielded the hit "Turf’s Up."

While Shake has since departed, Beeda has cemented his Clear Label connection, moving his whole camp, Pushin’ the Beat (PTB), into Hiero’s two-story East Oakland compound, which was purchased by the veteran collective in 2004. Known within Hiero as "the Building," though designated "Hiero" by everyone else, the space houses nine rooms, five studios, and a small warehouse of T-shirts, CDs, and other goods. Soon Beeda’s friend and collaborator, J-Stalin — himself signed to one of the Bay’s biggest rap independent labels, SMC — began bringing his own Livewire crew by, including Shady Nate, Clear Label’s next signee.

Bulging with the usual conglomeration of computers, mixing boards, rough-hewn vocal booths, and a fine layer of empty 1800 bottles and Swisher Sweet ashes, PTB’s two ground floor studios contrast with the Building’s general tidiness, like a kids’ playspace in an otherwise adult house. Yet they also exhibit an atmosphere of dedication. Dropping by on any given day, among the crowd of just-past-high-school aspiring MCs, you might see Beeda and Stalin studiously hunched over spiral notebooks with Mistah FAB, working on their NEW (North-East-West) Oakland project.

And FAB isn’t the only high profile visitor: everyone from San Quinn to the Federation comes through. Too $hort stops by regularly, and even national acts like Dem Franchize Boyz and Cease of Junior Mafia have found their way here. Given that Beeda and Stalin are two of the hottest young Oakland rappers and attract such elite company, Hiero suddenly finds itself at the center of what might be called the Bay’s post-hyphy moment, one embodied in a tougher, less dance-oriented sound, combined with classic Bay slap and tempered by R&B overtones.

"I wasn’t after a bunch of streeter-than-street dudes," Massey said, laughing. "But I sure ended up with some."

THE OTHER BAY BRIDGE


Intentional or not, the current emphasis on street rappers is consistent with Clear Label’s overall mission.

"Our fans aren’t that forgiving. Even bringing up other acts like Knobody or Musab, who are on the same tip as Hiero — our fans want Hiero music," Massey said, in reference to Hiero Imperium artists and the group’s demanding backpacker following. "So we’ll give it to them, and let Clear Label be the outlet for other acts, especially my relationship with PTB/Livewire."

HieroSlideShow.gif
Oakland hip-hop converges on the Hiero HQ. Photos by Alexander Warnow

It helps, Massey continued, that J-Moe, the CEO of PTB, has a vision. "That dude is a genius," the Clear Label honcho said. "He’s called the Machine, because he’s always working." With an uncanny ability to spot new talent — like 17-year-old phenom Yung Moses, who J-Moe dubs "the future face of the franchise" — the Machine is a crucial part of the evolution of Clear Label.

But Clear isn’t just a "street label," Massey continued. He’s working with a "rock ‘n’ roll" dude, Chris Maarsol, as well as League 510, which he describes as working in "really a new genre." Hailing from East Oakland, 510 blends lyrical, positive rap and house-influenced grooves in a mix the group calls "Town Techno." "It’s like bridging the hyphy movement and the alternative crowd," Massey said. "I know they’ll do well in cities like Miami, Chicago — where they have a house scene — and in Europe."

Interestingly, according to Massey, European fans have been more receptive to Hiero’s new connections than the domestic audience. "It’s crazy," he said with a laugh. Among other acts, Massey also scooped up Baby Jaymes, digitally re-releasing his 2005 debut, The Baby Jaymes Record (Ghetto Retro), and dropping a new single, "The Bizness," including Turf Talk. "Baby Jaymes is huge in Germany and Belgium, even Australia," Massey added. "I’m in Amsterdam and people are like, ‘Where’s Beeda Weeda?’ Out there people understand the association, whereas in Oakland, they have no idea. It’s odd how Europeans look deeper into it, and it’s a whole different language."

‘WE ALL FROM OAKLAND’


Perhaps it isn’t so odd. The language barrier may even facilitate European acceptance, because despite the differences between Hiero’s conscious lyricism and PTB/Livewire’s grimy topics, the musical bond is already there.

"There are more similarities than differences," Opio told me. "We all from Oakland. Hiero looked to Too $hort and E-40 when we began our independent hustle."

Though he admittedly can’t keep track of the crews’ ever-expanding rosters, former Hiero Imperium head Domino — who, after helming the organization from its mid-’90s inception, stepped down in 2006 to concentrate on production — also welcomes the influx of young talent. "As you get older," he said, "there’s not the same excitement as an artist. You can’t totally get it back, but you can feed off their new energy."

Beyond their shared approval, members of Hiero have already begun to collaborate with PTB/Livewire. Souls member A-Plus, for example, produced the dancehall-inspired opener, "Da Town," on Beeda’s new all-original mixtape, Talk Shit Swallow Spit — possibly the hottest Bay Area disc this year — while Casual appears on Beeda’s forthcoming album, tentatively titled Turf Radio. PTB, moreover, has added a more conscious lyricist, Tre Styles, upsetting what Opio describes as "the boxes the corporate market puts people in."

Massey agrees. "Look at Beeda or Shady. Their mentality isn’t ‘go dumb, go stupid,’<0x2009>" he noted. "Their lyrics are militant, and these guys are growing." Massey was also quick to point out the multidimensional side of J-Stalin, whose crime-ridden raps are infused with melancholy ambivalence about street life. "Stalin could be big like 2Pac," he opined. "He’s not trying to look hard. He’s a little dude, but he’s got all this heart and emotion."

Stalin himself is more modest, albeit slightly, at least concerning his upcoming SMC disc, The Pre-Nuptial Agreement. "Pre-Nup is going to be one of the greatest Bay Area albums ever," he said. "I ain’t saying I’m the best rapper. I’m saying I put together a great album." Judging by the songs he played for me that day — including the radio-ready "Get Me Off" with E-40 — he’s right. SMC’s Will Bronson is sufficiently confident in Stalin — and Beeda — to partner with Thizz Entertainment this summer to bring out the former’s Gas Nation as well as the latter’s The Thizzness, both pre-albums designed to tide fans over before their full-lengths in the fall.

"Stalin and Beeda are the only two new artists really buzzin’," Bronson said. "I couldn’t go a week without hearing about them."

As a result, Stalin and SMC plan to collaborate on future Livewire projects, including a group disc showcasing up-and-comers Shady and J Jonah, longtime members such as ROB, Lil Blood, and Ronald Mack, and newer recruits like Philthy Rich and 17-year-old Lil Ruger, whose wild, almost Keak-esque flow foretells fame.

The connection to SMC and Vallejo’s Thizz, moreover, suggests a serious new coalition which, given the waning of hyphy, threatens to become the next major force in Bay Area rap. "We’re just trying to keep the unity," Stalin concluded. "Because we’re all from different places, we wouldn’t be able to do this in the street."

UNITED FRONT


Such unity, always in short supply in the Bay, is one of the most intriguing aspects of the Hiero/PTB/Livewire situation. "We’ve got a movement, but it’s not a movement," said Jamon Dru, who, along with DJ Fresh, Tower, and others, formed the Whole Shabang, an autonomous production squad linked to both PTB and Livewire. "We’re trying to make music everyone will feel, not just the Bay. That’s put a hurt on us because we do have a ‘fuck everyone else’ attitude, like, ‘I don’t care if anyone else likes this shit.’ But we got families, friends, people in jail we gotta feed. We can’t be half-steppin’ like that."

Like Traxamillion, and unlike many local producers, Dru is candid about the influence of the radio on his sound. "It’s a little Southern-influenced," he said, "a little East Coast with Fresh chopping up samples, but with the 808s and a West Coast bassline. Every beat we make with samples, we gotta put an 808 knock in it." While it’s difficult to generalize, given the work of so many producers, Dru’s statement is a good sketch of the PTB/Livewire sound: it looks to the Bay’s older mob music through the modern lens of hyphy, even as it sheds the more gimmicky excesses of the latter.

Beginning his career under Beeda Weeda’s wing, Dru is already a mogul of his own, currently developing 19-year-old Gully, whose work can sampled on his mixtape Hustla Movement. Like Yung Moses, the saltier-voiced, vowel-stretching Gully is considered one of the most promising rappers in the camp, and the two are already slated for a collaboration. A song like Gully’s "Bush," imagining the life of a ghetto youth who suddenly finds himself a soldier in Iraq, even suggests that Hiero’s more politically progressive themes are creeping into the youngster’s work.

At present, however, Beeda remains the "face of the franchise" for PTB and Clear Label.

"Beeda’s got the biggest buzz," Massey said, "so it makes sense to lead off with him. I just want to set him up properly." Proper set-up in the Bay generally involves a "pre-album," and Beeda’s got three. Besides the all-original Talk Shit mixtape and The Thizzness, Beeda’s collaboration with DJ Fresh, Base Rock Baby — an ’80s-themed disc referring to Beeda’s generation as the first to be born after the crack epidemic began — appears in July.

"We’re going to push that online," Massey said, though there will be hard copies for sale. "Right now, if Beeda’s record sales matched his popularity, I’d be ready to retire." Still, he confessed, "everyone has Turfology, but only a few people bought it," citing the difficulties of selling albums in the era of burnt CDs and file-sharing, not to mention ongoing recession under the George W. Bush administration.

Another problem was the lag between Beeda’s video for "Turf’s Up" becoming popular on YouTube and the actual release of Turfology, confusing consumers who assumed the CD was already out. "This time we got the timing down," Beeda said. "We’ll build that buzz first, and everything will be ready to go." Nonetheless, as falling numbers of mainstream releases attest, selling albums has grown increasingly difficult regardless of timing.

"That’s not how we eat anymore," Dru said. "You put out an album to get shows and verse features [guest appearances on other artists’ songs]. So we gotta look at these songs as bait." Massey, meanwhile, is seeking other income streams to support his label and artists, like soundtracks and licensing.

As Massey confirms, street rap comes with headaches not usually associated with Hiero. A few weeks ago, as Clear Label began preparing Shady Nate’s debut, Son of the Hood, for release, Shady was arrested on an alleged weapons violation and remains incarcerated pending trial.

"They’re trying to throw the book at him," Massey said. "I’m hoping we can work it out because Shady’s a good dude, and his album is great." Even if Shady has to do a stretch in prison, Son of the Hood will probably see the light of day sometime later this year.

Ultimately the big question for PTB/Livewire is whether the coalition can achieve the mainstream success that eluded the hyphy movement. Beeda and Stalin think so, and with the support and mentorship of the Hiero camp, they have as good a chance as any in the Bay — and maybe even the best.

With the long view of a rapper 15 years into his career, Massey is philosophical about the prospects of his Clear Label empire. "If we break even it’s cool," he said. "If we make money, even better. But if I break even, I’m happy, because it wasn’t a loss for me to put out great music."

PAID DUES FESTIVAL***

With Hieroglyphics and others

Sat/14, 5 p.m., $40

Berkeley Community Theatre

1900 Allston, Berk.

www.ticketmaster.com

***This show has been cancelled. From the promoters: Guerilla Union and MURS 3:16 regret to announce that the PAID DUES INDEPENDENT HIP HOP FESTIVAL scheduled for Saturday, June 14 at the Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, CA, has been cancelled due to matters beyond our control.

For fans that have purchased tickets to the show, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Refunds are available for ticketholders at the point-of-purchase.

On like him

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I’m typing this with one hand, because I’m patting myself on the back with the other. According to Eddi Projex himself, I’m the first writer to ever interview him, back in 2003 when he was a member of Hittaz on tha Payroll, who’d just released their retail debut, Ghetto Storm (Hitta). It was the tail end of the Bay’s turn-of-the-century commercial drought, yet the group — including Polo, Curcinado, and Fletchberg Slim — sold almost 4,000 copies. On April 6, 2005, I wrote a Guardian piece on Projex when he had a BET video hit with "Drank-A-Lot," featuring his former mentor Numskull and Money B.

Now here we are again, and while I claim no credit for Projex’s success, I can’t help feeling gratified. I knew he just needed a shot and he got one: his Bedrock-produced single, "On like Me," was one of the hottest Bay records of 2007, despite the increasing difficulty of getting local music on the radio. Showcasing the skillful hook-writing evident on Ghetto and "Drank," "On like Me" confirms Projex’s status as one of the top three post–Mistah FAB Oakland rappers, along with Beeda Weeda and J-Stalin.

"I’ve always jumped on the hook," says Projex. "That’s the most important part of the song. You could be the rawest verse-writing nigga ever, but if you ain’t got the catchy hook, the raps don’t mean shit."

At that time, hyphy was heavy, he recalls: "I almost bit. I took the beat to the studio, got to talking about shakin’ dreds, and D-Kash [who signed Eddi to Hi-Speed Records] says, ‘Eddi, that ain’t you.’ So I went to my car, put the CD in, and blasted it. And I just started rappin’: ‘Candy on the paint / Chrome on the feet / Is anybody out there on like me?’ I took that bit for the hook, put everything together. Called that nigga the next morning — check this out! He was, like, ‘Yeah!‘

"FAB was, like, let me hear that," Projex continues. "Then he called me, like, ‘Eddi, this the one!’ He played it that Friday on Yellow Bus Radio."

"The response was crazy," Mistah FAB confirms. "Rick Lee from KMEL gave it a chance, then Mind Motion. It just took off."

Unfortunately, Projex wasn’t prepared to consolidate his success. "Album was nowhere near done," he concedes. "I just had a song on the radio. It jumped off, and I wasn’t ready for it." It wasn’t until the end of the year that Projex dropped his album, Now or Never (Hi-Speed/Payroll), which includes the "On like Me" remix with FAB and Too $hort as well as new singles, "Wiggleman," produced by Bedrock, and "Breezy," produced by the Mekanix and highlighting Keak da Sneak.

While Now brims over with grimy street raps, it also shows Projex’s deeper side, reflected in such tracks as the love song "I’m Feeling You," the politically minded "That’s Right," and the homage to family life, "Grown Man."

"My grandma love that song," Projex says of "Grown Man." "I’m not afraid to say I got a wife and kids. I’m still a player though. But I try to make music that everybody listens to. I’m a well-rounded dude." Though the tracks are way more gangsta, those numbers make Now arguably the most lyrically substantial street record since FAB’s Baydestrian (Faeva Afta/SMC, 2007).

What makes Projex’s positive songs so powerful, moreover, is his undeniable street cred. The 26-year-old rapper, born Eddie Scott, hails from East Oakland’s Stonehurst district, a.k.a. Stone City.

"That’s the last turf in East Oakland besides Sobrante, on the border of San Leandro," he explains. "Basically the 100s. That’s the first place I seen rocks selling, sold a rock, whatever. When Stone City was created, there wasn’t no rolling 100s. Then everybody came together to rep the 100s."

Wanting to set him on the right path, Projex’s mother sent him to Berkeley High School to pursue a promising football career, which was cut short by a shattered ankle. In his sophomore year, he dropped out to sell crack in Stone City and hooked up with Hittaz on tha Payroll, who became Numskull’s crew when the Luniz broke up.

By the time he was 18, Projex was traveling across the country with Numskull, from Los Angeles to New York City, rubbing shoulders with elite rappers like Xzibit, Jayo Felony, and Wu-Tang Clan. Though he and Numskull have since parted ways, Projex remains grateful for the experience, which separates him from the majority of his peers, many of whom have yet to venture East.

"I’ve seen the light, so I want that back," Projex says. "But this time I’m going to be in that light. I still got my Hitta roots, but I’m trying to make music for the masses. I’m trying to go putf8um and make millions."

Shocked, G?

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When I first heard Digital Underground in 1989, via "The Humpty Dance," little did I imagine it would someday fall to me to announce the group’s end. After a 20-year run — including five albums, one EP, one rarities disc, solo albums by Shock-G and Money B, and a helluva lot of touring — DU are calling it quits. Their Feb. 22 show at the Red Devil Lounge may be your last opportunity to see these putf8um Bay Area OGs. You’d be a fool to miss it: their shows are a cut above most live-rap, P-Funk-style fests, driven by Shock’s keyboards and an endless array of MCs, including, at one time, 2pac himself.

"Every group from [Public Enemy] to the Stones has experienced a hiatus, some straight-up fallouts," says Shock, a.k.a. Humpty Hump, on the phone from Los Angeles. "I think we hold the record for longest harmonious run without a breakup. I gave it a loyal 20 years — ya can’t be mad at that."

Despite the lack of internal beef, however, Shock’s decision to disband DU is both personal and artistic. Constant touring, for example, has taken its toll, particularly with the group’s partying reputation.

"The energy was gettin’ bad," Shock concedes. "Both the group and the audience were becoming a bunch of alcoholics. That means it’s time for a break.

"I did several sober shows over the past few years, like 1 in every 10. However, when I suggested this to the band, everyone looked at me like I’m crazy, as if I suggested doing the show naked!"

Even more pressing, however, is Shock’s desire to expand as an artist, musically and otherwise.

"I’ve always wanted to give serious musicianship a shot," he says, "to sit down at the piano like a jazz musician and do complicated arrangements and improvisations with other musicians. But it’s hard to be fully present anywhere when I’m outta town every weekend to do DU shows."

While Shock confirms he has about two albums’ worth of unreleased DU he’ll eventually drop and doesn’t rule out the possibility of a reunion — "Ask me in five years," he says — for now he wants to direct his energies in nonmusical directions.

"I wanna go down to Hollywood and see what it do: voice-overs, comedic acting, films, TV — stuff I never had time for from recording and touring. For the first time since 1987, I have time to commit to something else. I’m excited.

"I used to use George Clinton, Sting, and RZA as my models," he concludes. "Now I plan to be more Ice Cube, more Puffy, more Jamie Foxx, more wherever I wanna be."

DIGITAL UNDERGROUND

Feb. 22, 8 p.m., $20

Red Devil Lounge

1695 Polk, SF

1-866-468-3399

www.reddevillounge.com

Messy Marv at large

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Even the short list of elite Bay Area rappers — say, Too Short, E-40, Keak Da Sneak, and Mistah FAB — must include the Fillmore’s own Marvin Watson Jr., a.k.a. Messy Marv. Since selling 15,000 units of his debut, Messy Situations (Ammo, 1996), at age 16, Mess has consistently earned impressive independent numbers: his solo discs Disobayish (Scalen/Sumday, 2004) and Bandannas, Tattoos, and Tongue Rings (Scalen/SMC, 2005) both sold 20,000, while his collaboration with San Quinn, Explosive Mode (Presidential, 1998), has moved more than 50,000.

Mess began 2007 with Da Bidness (Gateway/SMC), the creation of a supergroup formed with Keak and PSD, which, according to SMC’s Will Bronson, was last year’s best-selling local independent disc, at 19,000 and counting. Mess’s current project, Draped Up and Chipped Out 2 (Scalen/SMC), dropped at the year’s end. By mid-December, Draped was the number one independent and number 13 overall album on the Music Monitor Network, which tracks sales from major United States indie chains.

The soundtrack to an uncompleted film, Draped consists mostly of songs by Mess — spitting alongside national talent like Mike Jones, Juvenile, and Sean Paul — plus tracks from local heavyweights like G-Stack and B-Legit. Despite its various hands, the disc still has an album feel, containing some of Mess’s best work since Bandannas. Highlights include his singles "My Life Is a Movie," which showcases a hook by the late Mac Dre, and "Sei Luv," a rare foray into romantic R&B. With multiple business ventures in the works — including a clothing line and a reality TV show — and perpetual major-label interest, Mess is as likely as any Bay rapper to go nationwide.

Coming from the Fillmore’s projects, however, presents challenges most artists don’t face. When I spoke with Mess, he was fresh out of Santa Rita Jail, where he spent the past year on a weapons charge.

"I was charged with felony possession of a firearm, my second firearm case," he said. "The deal was three years’ state pen, but my legal defense got me a year. Now I’m back out, trying to turn my negative situation into a positive.

"Jail didn’t stagnate anything as far as my label Scalen," continued Mess, who even recorded a Draped intro behind bars. "They had a phone so I could do my business and my time. I have a strong team behind me."

Nonetheless, given California’s three-strikes law, another felony gun charge could land Mess serious prison time. When asked if he’s worried, however, he got a little heated.

"Now you sound like the SF police," he said — the last thing a rap reporter wants to hear. "Are we trying to make people think I don’t care about going to jail?" he asked, citing his displeasure with a May 15, 2007, San Francisco Chronicle article implying his gun toting had ruined his career opportunities.

"I felt real exploited by that article," Mess said. "I said I’d rather be caught with than without, any day. The way the murder rate is, it’s like that. I don’t regret any of it. I’d rather people read about me in jail than read about me dying or being shot."

He has a point. I absolutely hate guns, as do SF voters, who passed Proposition H — banning possession and sale of firearms within city limits — in 2005. But Prop. H was struck down Jan. 9 by the First District Court of Appeal, based on a challenge by the National Rifle Association, for conflicting with state law, and I think it’s hypocritical to condemn rappers for carrying guns in a society that refuses to ban them. Street rappers like Mess have to maintain a presence in the hood to preserve their credibility and fan base. But money and fame make them targets for violent crime.

"We need some kind of protection," insisted Bay legend Spice 1, who was shot in the chest during a Dec. 3, 2007, attempt to break into his Escalade while he slept inside. The bullet pierced his lung, leaving him in critical condition, though he’s now out of danger and recovering.

"Entertainers should get a break, but we can’t even wear [bulletproof] vests," added Spice, who has had six gun charges, including four in California that predate the three-strikes law. "Marv ain’t trying to jack nobody. He’s trying to protect himself."

In any case, despite the risks, Mess has no intention of abandoning his hood. Beyond the usual rapper’s neighborhood pride, he has taken on an active role in attempting to turn negatives into positives. Aside from using his label to employ youths whose criminal records and/or poor education make getting jobs nearly impossible, he’s put out two volumes of Fillmore Nation (Scalen/SMC, 2006) to help young rappers launch their careers. He intends to donate a portion of the profits to two Fillmore community centers.

"When I got my position in the music industry, I didn’t turn my back on the kids," Mess said. "I’m out here with these kids, these criminals, and they look at me as hope because I was the same way. When they look at me, they can say, ‘If Messy Marv can do it, I can do it.’<0x2009>"

All told, I think San Francisco — or at least the Fillmore — is better off with Mess on the street than in a cell.

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