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.