By Timothy C. Davis
Staff Writer

There's another installment of the House of Blues' popular Myrtle Beach Rocks series taking place on Saturday.

This one's a little different, however.

This one's called "Myrtle Beach Rocks - The Mic," and features some of the most talented street poets the area has to offer: Peril-L, solo rappers AJ Case, J-Sneez and Sunni G, and bomb-track conglomerate Kno and the Masterminds.

It's the first time in recent memory that the local hip-hop community will have a stage as large as that of the House of Blues to perform on, not to mention the first time a show of this kind has ever been held at the venue.

The question is, why? Is it a sales thing? A "black" thing, perhaps? Or just an apathy thing?

Perhaps more importantly, is there really a hip-hop scene in Myrtle Beach? Or has the industry-wide so called "rap recession" - 50 Cent, often spoken of as hip-hop's bellwether star, struggled not only to beat rival rapper Kanye West, but to sell a million records with his latest, "Curtis" - trickled down to regional and even local rap scenes?

In a December New York Times article called "The Shrinking Market Is Changing the Face of Hip-Hop," Kelefa Sanneh notes that these declining sales mean two things: one, that when a genre dominated by big-talking rappers bragging about their riches falls on hard times - which is inevitable in any movement or trend, Sanneh notes - the music will undergo a sea change. Secondly, it means that new artists and young artists and those doing things in a different way - so-called "conscious" rappers especially - will benefit.

Rap legend Nas famously declared in song last year that hip hop was dead. Turns out, at least in these parts, it may have been just playing possum, waiting for the right time to rise.

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Even though Myrtle Beach is part of the so-called "Dirty South," the music being made here isn't the gut-thumping, lazily-drawled, hook-besotted crunk so beloved in our region (which is not to say it won't live forever in all of our plentiful strip clubs and nightclubs). There's the consciousness-raising rap of EP.AD.E=MC2 (pronounced "epidemic") from the Ascended Essence collective. There's the bi-racial raw-but-righteous rhymes of Peril-L. There's the slippery spittin' of U.C. Stradegez and Kno and the Masterminds. There are solo phenoms such as J-Sneez and Sunni G, formerly of local faves the B-1NZ.

There's a little bit of everything, in other words, much as there's a little bit of everything in the makeup of our terroir.

Matt Reid, 31, goes by the stage name Jo Shmo. His partner's name is Waverly Crawford, who goes by Blac Neo. Together, they make up Peril-L. From Michigan originally, Reid's been in Myrtle Beach since 2000.

A broadcast communication and journalism major at Western Michigan, Reid spends his time working in the marketing department at Hard Rock Park. His daytime hours, that is: at night, he writes, practices, and racks his brain trying to figure out how to bring the musicians who love hip-hop as much as he does together. Noticing that the House of Blues has held regular "Myrtle Beach Rocks" events celebrating local acts, up to and

including jam bands and country, a light bulb went off in his head: why not a hip-hop version of same?

"Myrtle Beach Rocks - The Mic" is the fruit of his labors.

"To my knowledge this is the first time the H

ouse of Blues has ever done this," Reid says. "I met with the general manager up there, Jackie Tedesco, and said to her 'Hey...you guys ever thought about doing a Myrtle Beach Rocks rap night?' And she said 'Yeah, but we don't think there's that many performers around to, you know, fill the bill.' So I said to her, 'I'll be honest, I have my ear to the street, so I know there's a ton of them out there, you just never hear about them, because they don't publicize themselves.' About two months later, she said they had a spot open for February, if we wanted to put something like this on. I just took the ball and ran with it."

Jacki Giardina, Promotions Manager for the House of Blues, says the club has always been open to the idea, if done right.

"We have done six Myrtle Beach Rocks shows before to showcase local talent," says Giardina. "Since I have been here, we've done one rock show on December 29 - the other shows in the past were similar rock shows, one country show and one jam band show. The last hip-hop show we had, Common with Q-Tip in September, we had great turnout for. (But) Being a slow time of year for the area, we wanted to do another show in the meantime to support locals and local music. There is always a demand, but lately local hip-hop artists have reached out to us wanting to theme our next local music show with hip-hop. We coordinate with Jim Mallonee (Southeastern regional talent buyer for the House of Blues franchise) to make sure that there are no conflicts with larger shows, and then once we decide the genre, we reach out to the local music scene for acts. (Reid and Co.) have been extremely enthusiastic and helpful organizing this show, I expect it to be a very large success."

MUSICAL PROFILING

The folks we've spoken with say that part of the problem with putting on a show - or even finding a place to host one - lies with the reputation that hip-hop shows have created for themselves, whether realistic or not.

"There are always concerns as with any show," says Giardina. "We always make sure we are well-staffed and prepared for anything. Typically we have a good crowd with minimal incidents (no matter the act or style).

"The House of Blues has had their service industry (S.I.N) nights," says Reid. "And they just used to be awesome, and then the trouble started...fights, that kind of thing. And so they've kind of shied away from people doing hip-hop. As you know, when you see their schedule every month, there's all kinds of rock bands, and blues bands, but you'll hardly ever find any hip-hop. And they're kind of gun-shy - they just don't want problems. The dudes we got playing, you know, there's no thug rap there. You might hear some crunk - though I hate that terminology, but these people aren't standing there saying 'I'm the baddest' and 'I got all this money' and 'I got all these girlfriends' kind of thing. I was real gracious and real thankful to the House of Blues - they're actually going out on a limb to do this. There are all kinds of bars and clubs in town that, if I had a rock band, I could get in there. But it's real hard for club promoters and owners to actually open their arms to hip-hop bands and say 'okay, we'll give you the stage.' But now we
got the biggest stage in town."

Conway's David "Focus" Owens, who, along with his friend Jake "Knowledge" Clemmings, makes up U.C. Stradegez, says it all comes down to business - and taking care of one's own.

"From a business perspective, venues are only looking at assets and liabilities, and they are scared of hip-hop performances," says Owens. "What they don't understand is that they are just scared of a culture that has been here for years, begging for attention. They think that rap equals violence. There are fights that break out at pretty much any show I've ever been to. A hip-hop showcase, a rock band, shit...people will fight at a poetry reading if they are drunk enough."

Joe "Kno" Battista of The Masterminds says the blame lies both with the venue and the artists - but not with the music as a whole.

"It goes both ways," Battista says. "Does the show cause a problem? No. Do people at the show? Yes. The last rap show I was involved in resulted in one of the headlining artists getting into a fight with an attendee. I've also been witness to plenty of shootings, stabbings, and other crazy happenings at hip-hop events. I don't feel this is the fault of the hip-hop show, but more of that hardened criminal mentality that has become so popular in rap music and the people that listen to it."

Joe Milano, 23, a fourth-year Coastal Carolina University student from Surfside Beach, goes by the nom de rap EP.AD.E=MC2. He's part of a loose, multi-city collective called Ascended Essence, a group whose flow tends - as the name might indicate - to veer into a more spiritual vein.

"Almost every hip-hop show I've been to, in New York City or wherever, the atmosphere has been positive," says Milano. "I've been to a couple shows around here and performed around here, and it's just not a hip-hop atmosphere...it's a really weird, showcase-y, you're big and bad roughneck kind of thing. That's just not hip-hop to me. Hip-hop is poetry. Hip-hop should be uplifting, in one way or another. Most people's view on hip-hop comes from what they see being pumped out on radio or TV. There's always a cycle back to everything, though. In the early '90s, you had The Roots getting together, and A Tribe Called Quest, and Leaders of the New School, positive acts talking about socially positive stuff. I feel it is tending that way again. A lot of change can happen from the poetry part of it, which I think is the root of hip-hop. I wish there was more of that, where people didn't feel like they'd have to come to a show and bump into all these people thinking they're all Iron Man or what not. But the people making the music, it's their own damn fault, you know"?

FORM MEETS FUNCTION

Hip-hop was once an underground phenomenon that bubbled up in the mainstream, but here in Myrtle Beach, the local scene appears to have holed itself up in a big way.

Put another way, if the music scene in Myrtle were the earth itself, Strand rap would be found somewhere between the core and the mantle. You can go into any neighborhood pub in the area and find some warbler playing acoustic guitar and singing "Brown Eyed Girl," but finding someone busting out a few heady rhymes can be a challenge.

Even the styles employed by local artists don't tend to break new ground either, although that appears to be changing. Unlike what you might expect from an area whose makeup includes blacks and whites and Latinos, Southerners and Northerners, Brazilians, Asians and Eastern Europeans, to name but a few, the styles of hip-hop purveyed in the area tend in two directions: big, bass-y boom bap, and so-called "conscious," or backpack rap.

Battista says the area's location - the South - makes it an easy choice for most artists: after all, you tend to gravitate toward what you're hearing, either on the radio or in the clubs.

"It's the South - shake your ass music is what is predominant," he says. "What can I say? The girls love to dance. Besides - listening to a motivating educational song with a real message that could change lives doesn't appeal to most people here - we went through the Horry County school system, we are lucky to be able to read."

"It seems like right now everybody likes this bubblegum rap that you can dance to and that's cool or whatever, I just wish these dudes could actually rap," Owens laughs. "I'll be feeling the beat, and then they start to spit and it just sounds like a long hook all the way through the song - and I don't respect that at all. See, with us, we have those hard-hitting, crunk-style beats, but we actually study our craft and that's where this rap game got jacked up. I don't know what happened to the days when you wanted to be the illest lyricist...when you just wanted the feeling of just ripping a dude that thought he was better than you."

Reid says that he feels, especially on a national level, that there's something of a cultural shift happening, much in the same way that the A Tribe Called Quests of the world helped smooth the transition from fist-in-your-face acts like N.W.A. and the Geto Boys.

"Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, those kinds of rappers, man, they're great. And they're exactly what rap needs to be. More lyrics - more intelligent lyrics. Most rap on the radio today is just dumb. The 10- and 11-year-old kids listening to rap music, you just want to say to them that this wasn't what they had in mind when they invented it and tried to bring it to the masses."

"Poetry is written for the benefit of mankind," says Milano. "It's not for the ego. It's about dropping the 'I's' and 'Me's' in the verses and replacing them with 'We's' and 'Us's.' I feel that if a lot of local venues opened up to a more conscious message or opened up a lounge where people could do their poetry and spoken word and all that, and get intellectually stimulated, it would attract more of the people who listen to rock and the kind of music frequent around the area. You can feel a lot of the emotion and consciousness in that music, and I think a lot of the local people aren't being exposed to that type of hip-hop. In other cities, it's very prevalent - going into political and social issues, and even spirituality. You can go to a show, and leave there with something other than a pissed-off feeling. People don't support the hip-hop around here because it doesn't spread a message. No matter what I say, it's going to sound like hip-hop, but if people haven't heard me, it's going to turn them off. People have to be able to hear the music first, however."

"The way I look at it is that you have to change with the times," Owens says. "You have to change your way of thinking to be better than everybody else in the game. If you want to be the best you have to have a new idea. So the same way you have a lot of artists following in the footsteps of other artists, you have venues following in the footsteps of other venues, and everyone is scared to do something different because it might not be a success and they will suffer (as a result).

"I bet someone like (Wal-Mart founder) Sam Walton never thought about shit like that. He stepped his damn game up."

FUTURE STYLE

But how does a local artist get his or her music to the masses? As with each artist's individual recordings, everyone's got a different opinion. However, most folks we spoke with say thatperformers must learn to temper the competitive aspects of what's known in the industry as "the game" a little bit - at least off stage - if the area's hip-hop artists as a whole are to receive a wider listenership.

"A hip hop scene? This is not rock music - it's real life," Battista says. "You want live hip-hop? Go to your local street corner, or underprivileged neighborhood. It was born there, and it thrives there...still."

"People are lazy," Owens says. "The same people who say they love their craft sit and wait for something to come and bite them in the ass, and that's just the truth. A lot of these artists around here are retarded - they think that they've already blown up. In hip-hop everybody thinks they are better than the next man these days. Back in the day it was a movement, everybody-for-one cause, but now it's like rappers are crack dealers trying to beat each other out for the next sell."

"The organization of hip-hop in Myrtle Beach isn't of a professional caliber," Milano says, and adds that even on a small scale, people must be careful about who they're doing business with - up to and including fellow artists.

"I think there's a lot of potential. A person who has money and the credentials and connections can make it - really - but it's all about flying with the eagles and not the turkeys. And right now, there's a lot of turkeys around here."

"What people need to do is work together," Reid says, while adding that hip-hop artists need to go the gallery direction if need be: get your work out there, and build momentum for everyone by adding their own oar to the water.

"This show at the House of Blues is a showcase, but there's no headliner," says Reid. "It's the nature of rap to be competitive. But if these people in Myrtle Beach who are trying to do the music would get together instead of doing it all separate, it would help us all. If these guys would quit trying to compete and form a nucleus, we'd get along - all of us - a lot better. I mean, you don't hear Pearl Jam making their whole career off of dissing Stone Temple Pilots in song."

When asked where he sees the "Murda Beach" hip-hop scene in five years, Reid doesn't hesitate.

"This rap scene's been around a little bit," says Reid. "There is a rapper who lives here sometimes named Shamroc who opened up for Snoop Dogg and Redman and Method Man. Then there were the B-1NZ, and they went on a national tour. In the future, I see someone coming out of Myrtle and making the national spotlight in the next five years. When OutKast came out of Atlanta in 1994, they were the first to come out of Atlanta. Fast forward 13 years, and Atlanta is the mecca of hip-hop. I'm not saying Myrtle Beach is going to be that way, but you see guys coming out of Houston, and little towns in Mississippi. It can come from anywhere, like music does, and I believe there's enough talent in the area that it's going to happen. Being a tourist town, people come and go so quick, it can be hard to build a fan base. But you can also reinvent yourself here too. A change of scenery can be a wonderful thing - both for a performer and for a town. You can be who you want to be, and say what you want to say."

Owens says if artists want folks to spend money and care about their music, they must first give their own music that same attention.

"We as artists have to quit doing track after track after track and just thinking we're going to blow up off of it," says Owens, who recently completed a session in producer Jay Burgess' Myrtle Beach-based Little Bos Studios.

"Having it played on the radio is a good look, but that's just one step in a long process. We have to start pushing ourselves and really let it be known that we deserve to be heard. We need bigger venues to give us a chance, but we can't rely on people showing up just because it's a bigger venue, we have to work harder. We have to reach outside of S.C. to get known."

Burgess, owner of Little BOS (short for Little Bit of Stuff, thanks to the variety of music he records) isn't short on opinions, least of all about music.

"In order to promote the scene, you need hip-hop promoters who know how to promote hip-hop shows he says. They're unlike any other shows. Hip-hop requires security. Which is not to say all or any of the artists are violent - it's just the image that's portrayed, or that is imagined from the music. A lot of people don't know that these places have high insurance premiums. But a lot of these kids don't understand anything. Like that these clubs make a lot of their money off of alcohol, and the reason that they might pay you to come in is because you will bring people, people who might buy that alcohol. If you mess up that harmony between the club and its patrons, they might not want you there anymore."

"The cohesiveness between the rappers, or at least the understanding of the business part of it, lacks cohesiveness," Burgess says. "My hip-hop clientele makes up about 10 percent of my business. The scene is spread out here geographically. There's very little camaraderie. What I try and do in my studio is teach the rappers how to become entrepreneurs. How to feed their own machine."

Reid says that no matter what happens, people must continue to peck away at the Myrtle modus operandi.

"The Brickhouse Lounge has been good about booking some shows like this, as has the Jackass Saloon near Conway (and The Sound Garden, which hosts a bi-weekly hip-hop event called The Show). It's really hard to get a place, however. It's just all the baggage which goes along with hip-hop. It doesn't have to be that way. Hopefully after the "Myrtle Beach Rocks...The Mic" show, people will open their doors more. Maybe we can get a hip-hop act somewhere at Broadway (at the Beach). Kids these days are growing up with rap. When I was coming up, rap was something of a dirty word. You didn't see a lot of white kids listening to it, or getting into learning to do it themselves. In the last few years, that's not the case anymore. Everybody accepts it. They might not like what everyone has to say, but they know it's not going anywhere.

Jamaal "J-Sneez" Cheatham, a Socastee resident, says that the only way the local hip-hop underground will truly seep up into the mainstream is via artistic synergy, and the opening of channels.

"This is a tourist town, but we have potential to be so, so much more. Acoustic music is just one of the great things we have. Once we start promoting hip-hop like we do the acoustic and rock music, we'll bring a whole new audience. All we got to do is support each other."

Cheatham's suggestions include contacting local radio stations, asking them to host more local music segments, and in return helping out the radio station, too.

"The clubs could do more local talent showcases," he says. "The local artist could promote for clubs and radio stations by simply making a flyer or putting an advertisement on their web page or Myspace.com page about the club or the station."

Murrells Inlet resident Phil Jackson, 27, goes by the name DJ QP. He puts on monthly shows called "Hip Hop Live" (one will take place February 8 at the Brickhouse Lounge in Surfside Beach, featuring U.C. Stradegez, J-Sneez, Jebb Mac and others), and has been a mainstay in the area scene for some time, often in tandem with the rapper Shamroc.

"Violence, violence, violence," Jackson says. "Hip-hop is made out to be like 'oh, we don't want rappers 'cause there will be fights all night and someone will get shot.' Bullshit. "It's all in the way you promote the show and how the show is conducted. If it conducted as a party atmosphere, and the DJ does not play 'fight' music, chances are you won't have any problem. I will have 250 people at an event sometimes, and not have one altercation.

"It's all in how you conduct your party," he continues. "We promote unity and peace, not violence. There are only a handful of clubs that will have us, so we have to show them that we can still have a hip-hop party without problems. If people would realize that if you fight at the club on hip-hop night they will take it away from us (we'd be better off). Otherwise, what we are is back to square one. You can put six of the hottest local acts on stage and be lucky to get 200 people out. But put Soulja Boy on stage and you won't be able to get in the door (laughs).

"It's sad hip-hop has come to this, but it's up to us to change that."

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