Boston Beats & Rhymes - Part 2

Boston Beats & Rhymes

In 2004 Scott Limanek produced an interesting and thorough documentary about the history of hip-hop in Boston called "Boston Beats & Rhymes." The film includes a lot of footage from concerts we produced, along with interviews from our management clients; EDO.G, Mr. Lif and Akrobatik. I scoured the internet to find some video clips and came up empty, and then remembered that Scott gave me a copy years ago, and actually managed to find the damn thing .... I'll be posting this in 5 chunks, and it's worth a watch.

Here is Part 1

Mr. Lif & Akrobatik "Inhuman Capabilities Live"

This live performance was recorded at the 2004 NEMO Music Showcase at The Middle East. More to come from this show.

You can stream or download here.

Eminem

Whatever you think of Eminem now, there was a time when the indie crowd went nuts for him. When "Just don't give a fuck" hit college radio there was a huge buzz, and it seemed like just a few weeks later we were hearing he was signed to Interscope. We busted our asses to get the Interscope account when we heard this, because we knew that with our reach in the indie/skate market, plus all the work we were doing for commercial labels at that point, that we were uniquely positioned to help break Eminem in Boston. We knew Em's manager, so when another company dropped the ball, we basically got a call from the manager saying "drop what you are doing and come do an in-store for me right now," and we did. I might be mixing up my timeline, but I'm fairly sure we hijacked Newbury Comics on Newbury Street and turned what was supposed to be a "walk-thru" into a full-on signing event, it was a mob scene, and Newbury was really pissed off at us for awhile.

It was interesting hanging out with Eminem at that stage of his career. He wasn't "untouchable" yet, so we got plenty of chances to grab a beer (or twelve) and drive him around places. He was sort of like a cartoon character ... very animated, and loosely sketched.

We worked with Lyricist Lounge to do their tour in Boston which De La Soul headlined. Eminem was on the bill, and even as a mostly unknown people were going nuts. We did an afterparty for this show, and Eminem was completely plastered, and forced me to do several tequila shots with him. We then went with Interscope up to a show/snowboard event in Vermont (Brooklyn Vermont) where Eminem was opening for Black Star ... which when you think of it is funny in a number of ways.

Eminem also did a posse record on Rawkus for Soundbombing II with Shabaam Sahdeeq which cemented his place as one of the best, and certainly the funniest, lyricists of the time.

Eminem blew up so fast that pretty soon we couldn't get within 50 feet of him, but we kept a good relationship with his manager for a while, and got to some events and such over the years. His original DJ, DJ Head, was a really cool guy who we ran into a bunch of times after that.

Here is the video that started it:

Bazooka Tooth WFNX Promo

When Aesop Rock's Bazooka Tooth album dropped, we teamed up with Boston alternative station WFNX to do the release party at the Paradise. It was a great show, El-P was there, Perceptionsits, SA Smash (RIP Camu) and a bunch of others. Sold out with a line of people waiting. As our media sponsor, WFNX ran a radio spot to promote the show (which I have included below). We took the guys to the station to do an interview and on the way back they heard the promo in the car and bugged out because they hadn't ever heard a commercial promo like that for their shit. I have a YouTube video of this show that now has messed up audio, so I'll import some video at some point and post here.

Download the promo.

DJ Revolution "Sonar Vol 1" - 2003

In April 2003 we launched a new program called SONAR, an indie hip-hop mix CD series with Rev at the wheels. The idea was that we were going to produce 10,000-20,000 units per release and distribute through our street teams in 10 major markets on an ongoing basis - 6 CD's per year. Volume 1 was really well received, Rev murdered it, and we pushed out 10,000 units as a pilot program, but it was an expensive campaign that we couldn't keep up with.

Here is the cover with track list, and a link to the full CD is below:

For the full CD, click here.

Mr. Lif EP Release Party Performance w/ Edan

Mr. Lif w/ Edan performing "Get Wise," from his Emergency Rations EP in May 2002.

Boston Phoenix article on street marketing - 1999

Check it.

Superbowl MC Battles

I have a ton of photos and video and such from the six battles we did here in Boston, and will post some of that stuff as and when I find it, or have the time to digitize some video. We loved doing the battle every year, it was always the best show we did I think. Running a battle is an intense experience; things move really quickly, and I'm proud that with few exceptions these shows went off without any real problems.

The last one we did at Avalon in Boston (and I promise some video in the near future on this) was a mixed bag for us. We had 2,000 people in the building and KRS-One as host and guest performer; it should have have been the crown jewel of all the battles, but we made some odd choices in terms of our sponsors, and how that would impact the kind of crowd we brought in. We partnered with JAM'N 94.5 on the event, the local commercial hip-hop/R&B station. They gave us massive media exposure for the event, and I really appreciate their partnership, but it brought in a more mainstream audience that didn't quite get into the indie battle MC's we brought in from around the country. These were dudes who were killing it at Skribble and other regional battles, but they didn't appeal to an audience that was just looking for punch-lines. I will say though, that KRS performing from the middle of the crowd was one of the better live performances I have ever seen, and that is saying something.

Also, it's worth noting that the original battle was a spin-off from an ongoing event series we were doing with Rocky LaMontagne called "All That! Hip-Hop, Poetry & Jazz." He was an important part of these events. We sort of fell out at the end, but this wouldn't have happened at all without the inspiration from his event in NY and his ability to bring fresh talent into Boston every month.

Here is the flyer I just found for the 2nd Annual Superbowl MC Battle in 2000 at The Middle East, I'll get some photos and video up here soon.

And here is a clip from the first one, which went down at the Western Front

And here is another clip from 2003. Dos Noun got Bomshot pretty good in this one, but the judges voted Bom to move ahead. Somehow Bom ended up getting into almost every battle we did ... he'd have dudes stuffing the ballot box, whatever. Lol.

Because They Made it That Way

We shot this video for zero dollars with Ethan Lader as the director. We did two takes, walking through Post Office Square in Boston. We had the music ramped up to play at 150% while filming so that when we slowed the video down to synch with the real track everything would be just a little slow.

DJ Fakts One had to do his DJ bit on the portable turntable and then haul-ass around the corner to get ahead of Lif again. I still think this is a dope video, and the honest response from people walking on the street was pretty funny ... mostly when people walked by like nothing was happening. There is a dreaded dude rapping like a chipmunk walking down the street ... no big deal I guess. I couldn't begin to tell you when we did this. 2000 maybe?

Here is the instrumental for that track.

Here is the video:

Company Flow Live MP3 (2001)

This is a live recording of "Population Control" from what I think was the second-to-last Company Flow show before El-P and Len split. It was recorded at The Middle East in Cambridge MA. The venue was a stinking hot sardine can, packed to the gills with a crowd that knew every word. I know this was part of a Lif/CoFlow twin bill, I think it was for the release party for Lif's "Enters" EP.

Small world, but we also booked CoFlow for a show in Boston a couple of years earlier that marked the split of Bigg Jus from the group.

Here is the mp3.

Also, if you don't own a copy of CoFlow's album Funcrusher Plus (shame on you), you can cop the re-release here.

Western Front - 1999

I'm pretty sure this was shot during set-up at The Western Front for the first Superbowl MC Battle in 1999.

I know some of the artists had mixed feeling about participating, but you'll NEVER see a battle line-up like that again. Mr. Lif, Esoteric, Akrobatik, Sage, Virtuoso etc etc.

I have a stack of photos from this event somewhere ... better than the one of me above (who am I kidding anyway?).