SUPPORT IS A GATEWAY DRUG

[NOTE TO SEATTLITES: This is an NO WAY an attempt to take any shots at my dude Larue. The “S” word has been one going around long before him and will be around long after. Just felt this was as good a time as any to write this since its fresh on peoples minds.]


There are a few lines that float around this cities rap scene that have always secretly made me cringe. Phrases like “true hip hop” in a sappy ass east coast wannabe track, any time a freestyler fucks up and has to justify it by reminding you “this is straight from the top”, or pretty much any call and response with a crowd (especially in situations were the crowd isn’t responding) can be so cheesy they start to sound like the audible equivalent of a 40 year old man wearing a tall tee, however none can fuck with the granddaddy of them all; Support local hip hop.

Before we go any further here I want you to stop and think about how that sounds; “Support local hip hop”. Listen to the key word; “support”.

[Per websters online]
SUPPORT - The activity of providing for or maintaining

When I think of the word support that’s exactly what comes to mind, Child support, a support beam for a crumpling structure, life support for the sick. All things made to be provided and maintained for, something that can’t provide for or maintain itself.

Is that really what this scene needs, some artificial prop up, some guilt driven imperative to “help the poor rapper out” like were sitting in the middle of the Sahara with bloated bellies and flies on our faces? This is hip-hop, it’s a contact sport. I don’t want no fucking support, I want fans, followers, listeners.
To be fair, the people who spout off with this kind of talk don’t mean “supporters” in the traditional sense of the word. More in the lines of not being slept on as a dope artist, or not being passed over by a local tastemaker for their “big break” in the city. That’s more respectable, but even that can take a dangerous drive down “Doing it wrong blvd”.
Firstly, supporters make “shitty, shitty” fans. Seriously, lets be honest here, “supporting” fans are usually the same people you use to buy your kids fundraiser candy every year (friends family and coworkers). They’ll show up, they’ll buy the album; they’ll even pay at the front door, BECAUSE THEY FEEL THEY HAVE TO. They hate every moment of it, and every year when that time comes around they see you and cringe. If it gets worse they’ll begin to avoid you, they’ll have other things to do one the date of your show, “won’t have enough money” for your album, and the like. Fans on the other hand, can’t wait to buy your album, want (WANT) to hear about your latest endeavors, and will spend their last to get to one of your shows. Fans will even take it a step further and tell other people about your music and bring them along, they’ll post your music on social networking sites and get your name out. Supporters wont make you a trending topic on twitter, fans will. One of the most embarrassing memories I have of starting out doing shows was at a show in which the only people paying attention to our performance were a few coworkers and my homeboys mom in the front row (yes you read that right). Until now we never talked about that show cause it was so bad. The dj choked back a little chuckle as he announced our names when we walked off the stage.
Secondly as far as networking and business goes, as cold as it may sound people only extend a hand to your business when they feel they can get something out of it. There’s nothing underhanded behind the idea of putting money in with the goal of getting something in return of equal or greater value, its just business. We do it everyday when we purchase items, and we ourselves are the product when were hired. So when a show booker looks at you as an artist in a sea of similar artist there has to be something that says “this one will make me some money”. If part of your problem is that you don’t have a following then there is no point in them booking you and thus begins a cycle that you may see as lack of support.
I hate to sound like a republican here, but this may be the one time they have something right. In this one instance, support is one of those things people get too used to and become dependent on (that’s why its called support). Supporters also have the nasty habit of giving artist bad intelligence by nature of their very existence. Where dwindling fans would act as a clear indication to even the most stubborn artist that things aren’t looking good and changes may need to take place (maybe your fans didn’t like your last project and its time to step your game up), supporters will stick around despite your performance, giving artist a false sense of achievement and in turn encouraging bad behavior. I know of a couple artist that have yes men feeding them very bad advice along their (unbeknownst to them) crappy careers and one of the first things I try to do is get them as far away from that kind of feedback as possible. Imagine having that outside of the studio 24/7 for a second. Its these same supporter/yes men that convince these rappers that its okay to put together sloppy, lazy projects, the same supporters/yes men that convince rappers that its okay to give shitty performances, and it is these same supporters/yes men that make these artist think there is no need to push their art further.
The real problem could stem from the fact that most people only see the fruits and not the labors of an artistic movement. Upon seeing the end results, one tends to take what is at the scene for what may be the cause. You see Wiz shinning with the Taylor gang cats in the crowd and think “ok so all I need to do is name my followers and I’m in there!” 2 days later you see a thousand cats on twitter naming their followers

“what’s going on people, got a show down at the high dive, be sure to come through #teamhippidyhop”

its not like that at all. Wiz has been doing it for years and built everything he has from the ground up. See how its supposed to work is to start with a dope artist, you put out dope music, you pound the pavement (not just the net, the fucking pavement), and you network, mingle, you do shows and knock them out the box, lather rinse repeat. What many out here end up doing instead is coming out with respectable music and wait. That’s not how it works.
Now I’m not going to lie, as far as our scene goes, there is a degree of cronyism. People will back up certain artist that don’t deserve to be anywhere near on top and you’ll look around and see people nodding with approving smiles and think your in an episode of the twilight zone. Your not crazy, that guy does suck, but he’s not on top of things thanks to the 206 branch of the illuminati (sealuminati?). Do you know what those people are that are big upping him? That’s right, THEY ARE HIS SUPPORTERS! They bare nothing beyond marginal influence on your situation and will burn out eventually. Half the people you may think have it so big out here don’t really get past king county lines before that support wears off and they have to face real people and earn fans. Stop worrying about supporters.
If anything seattle needs LESS of a supportive scene and force artist to thave to step their fucking game up, I know it would have helped me tremendously back when I first started doing this if someone heard a wack ass beat/song from us and told us the real rather than “that’s dope, now hear mine”.

THE LAST SOUNDWAVES?: inane ramblings about the scene during my short run

Welp, here we are. end of the whole experiment that was soundwaves 2 and i find myself asking the serious question of "should there even be a soundwaves 3? before I delve deep into my emo fest I must warn you, im on some new shit. names will get named here. i don't care anymore. I have always tried to keep quite on stuff because of the fact that the Seattle scene is a constant flux of "whose side are you on". you critisize someones beat, they don't wanna submit work to your project, you tell someone they coulda brought it a little more on a verse, they don't wanna open for your show. A little tact is never a bad thing, but its gotten so bad to the point that they're are people you litterally can't tell nothing to and let me be honest, as a producer i get enough of this already and i'm not gonna contribute to it. especially since the results are the same as if i had said something. also we started soundwaves to for the main purpose of "putting people on" we always kept the most perfect balance possible of established local acts, up and comers, total darkhorses for the soul reason of letting nonames shine against stars in a way we are pretty confident you would never see otherwise. we also wanted to see people come up on a little cash. of course their are greedy reasons like building a brand out of the show, and getting Cel some face time invovled as to why we did this, im not gonna lie. but the base intentions where always pure. just looking at it from a business model perspective would show pretty clearly that it wouldn't be smart from a business perspective but my goal never was to make money from this. We know where not BIGTUNE (a show that we have tremendous respect for) nor were we trying to be with this beat battle, we always wanted to remain small and local. Steve harvey voice: "WELL, NOW THAT WE GOT THAT PART OUT OF THE WAY...." first off, i had a 15 man line up rather than a traditional 16 man. why you ask? well to give our reigning champion kdcutz a first round bye (a thought up reward for winning previous soundwaves battles that Cel and I thought up that we thought would be cool). the only problem with such an odd lineup is that the entire show would be fucked if you don't get everyone to show up. but surely our hero of yesteryear wouldn't miss an opportunity to win another cash prize, especially one that would theoretically be easier than last year with one less round right? right? WRONG infact we had a number of flat out no show no calls in some of the most unprofessional manner. kdcuts no show jay battle no show izzy no show <---(fyi dude, your automatic xbox360 gamertag updates that say your at home playing call of duty modern warfare 2, not a good look when you noshow on someone). pretty much the only legitamate cancellation was boomboxmassacre, who had a computer issue and told me well ahead of time that he couldn't attend. there was other fuccery from other competitors, such as asking to get in without having to submit beats (man if you don't have beats for consideration, how you gonna win the battle!?) and then once getting in, dropping out the day of once you see the competition sheet because you quote "forgot it was fathers day that day" cmon son! lol really!? In case you haven't figured the theme out for this blog entry, its show etiquete. I know sometimes in the midst of being told how nice you are by friends and family, getting a couple youtube shout outs, or maybe even doing a song with a Q-list celebrity artist or two it can be easy to forget you are not in a position to be a diva and are in fact very much.....gulp....dare i say it?

LOCAL

shocked diva: "wha....!? not me"

YEAH YOU MUTHAFUCKA!

you

me

all of us

local, so get off your high horse

I'm sorry but you not wanting to start the show until you have purified yourself in waters of lake minitonka, or recieved your hand picked grapes just isn't in the cards and continuing down that path is just gonna screw your name up real fucking talk. i don't care who you (or who you think you) are, people will get tired of it. YOUR NOT KANYE. i had a nigga really request comp meals to do the show, im like "nigga you submited your application to me! gtfohwtbs"

its getting weird out here yall. i know im gonna get a thousand "do you know who such and such is, you should apologize" type of emails, save em. i don't care and this stuff needs to be said.

for all the whinning people do about shady promoters/venues like studio 7 and how much you guys wanna "get on" how you gonna front someone off when they try to actually put you on.

when my co-sponsor had to gracefully bow out and the prize went from $1000 - down to $500, i swallowed my pride and made sure i personally emailed, twittered, text, and in some cases even called each and every contestant to let you know it and if you wanted out because of it, you were more than welcomed to. now imagine how bad a rep i would have had if i had just said it at the show.

next post we will go further into actual show etiquete in the next post.

STAY TUNED

SOUNDWAVES 2! ELECTRIC BOOGALOO!

This is it folks, raw as beatmakers fighting it out for bragging rights....oh and $500 cash.
also gonna be some performances from The realest and my boy YOUNG CEL. this shit is gonna go down. even hotter than last time with veteran competitors like Jack the ripper, jay battle, baked beats and reigning champion kd kutz!
hell even UW hoop star Venoy Overton is dropping in to hear the heatery
hell this time theres even a freaking after party
i personally got a list of more than a few dozen top notch females coming through to this.
GET YOUR ASS TO THIS!

now i aint one to gossip and you aint heard this from me, but i heard Jesus Christ himself is taking sunday off from work to get to this. its going down!
(ok that last parts not true, but this is still gonna crack)
(sorry jesus, but come through if you can)

The zombification that can be Seattle hip hop

First off let me say that no scene is without its own brand of politics and many are waaaay worse than ours. in fact i feel it is not our own brand of politics that is the problem but the small amount of space in which it occurs in. this can lead to politics which would seem mundane or harmless in a large scene like say New york to be considered colosal in Seattle. being one of the priveleged few with access in such a small market gives you a lot of power and this is totally fine (people forget there is a degree of business to this). what is not okay however is to deny that this network even exist at all and to straw man the argument into oblivion.
For clarification

THE "CIRCLE JERK", CHAIN OF COMMAND, ECHELONS OR ANYOTHER NAMES FROM HERE ON OUT IS NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT NOT GETTING ON A SHOW.
the echelons are not i repeat ARE NOT Vitamin D/jake one/larry mizell jr/john moore/dave meinert (or mein millie)or any other name that you heard of as prominent in the town. in fact all those cats mentioned (and many more) are nothing but helpful.

The circle jerk lies in yes men cosigning hip hop no-no's in the hopes of getting in good with artist. as frustrating as Fyle Formatz post could get at times they happened to get 1000 replies at a time because they obviously struck a nerve with people. worse still, a glaring majority of the post weren't even from the people he was offending but from legions of zombies fighting a proxy war on their behalf in order to gain favor with higher ups. this isn't limited to online nut-hopperism.
D-dot had an argument with a man at party who was going hard on defending vitamin D as the greatest hip hop producer in the town and yet he couldn't name a single vita track. worse still he questioned dot's knowledge of vita (Dot is vita's brother. irony at its finest in that situation).

To avoid being one of these zombies it is important to follow the guidelines below to see if your part of this seattle hip hop douchery.

- Do you in ANY way shape or form try to argue that the reason someone isn't into your favorite local act is because they quote "don't get it"?

- [proof specific] Do you see the song of the week name and post a critique or compliment before you have really listened to the track?

- Do you go to shows or encourage others to go to shows to "Support"?

- Have you ever started off a critique or opinion of someones music with any version of "such and such is a good dude" or "i have known such and such X amount of time"?

- Have you ever stepped in to attack someone who has stated they dislike a song because "this person is an icon"?

If so you are a zombie and part of the reason artist get passes for putting out crap or make questionable moves so you really can't get mad when you see up and coming artist doing the same thing on a much smaller scale.


more on this later as we next discuss upper echelons.