The Spliff is NOT A CLUB

As one of the staff of The Spliff Hip-hop showcase I want to appoligize to people who came to see a good show and ended up being harrased by the cops!

For those who don’t know, this past friday we had a large group of people (most of which I knew) posting outside the event and standing in the middle of the street. This attracted cops which shut the even down at 12:00am, and two people did not get to perform.

You guys have to understand that the homies who run The Spliff consist of a DJ and a host. And you little hip people don’t have enough respect to stay for the whole show and hear each artist so when you post up outside, there is no way to control it. Lowkey I would think that other people would have felt the same way but I guess they didn’t see that coming like I did.

So either stay and watch the show, go to your own cars and hang out or go the fuck home! These are people who are trying to make it and have real talent, just because your little ignorant asses ain’t heard of them doesn’t mean anything. There are a millon people who never heard of your artist before (if you even want to call them that). I don’t know if niggas gon take this the wrong way and I don’t care. I got too much love for my homies and too much love for this hip-hop movement for ya’ll lil niggas just to mess it up.

And calm down dude there was no way that the cops would have let just you finish the show man, let’s not kid ourselves. BUT ANYWAY, next Spliff I’m coming with a shoty and keeping people in line.

It’s been a whole year . . .

Interview w/The Cool Kids

This was supposed to go up on URB.com but they forgot to post it for some reason. 

I sat down with the Cool Kids right before their show at the Key Club on Sunset this past Sunday to get an update about their music and plans for the summer.

URB(aka me): How has life been since you guys blessed our cover?

Mikey Rocks: It’s been dope. We’ve been touring constantly man, making new songs and getting ready for the first full-length album have called When Fish Ride Bicycles. We’re preparing for that, touring and just keep building with the kids listening to us, getting the new kids to listen to us and constantly tryna top what we did before.

So tell us a little about The Bake Sale EP.

Mikey: That was all the songs that me and Chuck made when we first met each other – through the first year and a half of us making music together. We wanted to put it on a disc for all the people that might not have heard of it [before] cause a lot of that stuff was already on the internet, a lot of people had it and heard those songs before so we just wanted to package it up to give to people who might want a physical disc. It ain’t a album, its an EP. We don’t expect any, you know, marginal sales off of it. We dont expect it to sale any mass numbers because its just an EP. . . Our main focus is our first album and we’ve just been grinding on that.

Now there are a few songs out there that didn’t make it on Bake Sale, are those going on the album?

Mikey: The Songs that are fairly new like “Oscar the Grouch” and “That’ll Work” are going out on a mixtape that we’re throwin’ out real quick called Thats Stupid, we’re getting ready to put that out in like a week. 

Is a DJ hosting it or what?

Mikey: We got our homie Mondo from Power 106. He’s kinda hosting it – its not like a “DJ Drama mixtape” we didn’t wanna do that per-ser we tryna to it the old school way with a couple of songs thats dope and package em up for the summer, just to give everybody something new for the summer.

Yea ya’ll should put a few out on actual cassestte tapes with an A and B side (laughs).

Mikey: (Laughs) Yea thats not a bad idea.

Chuck, how is the relationship between you and Mikey seeing as how you’ve only been a group for a few years?

Chuck Inglish: I don’t know the science behind it, we are just a lot alike. We know how to not get on each others nerves. I think that keeps everything together as far as business [partnership] goes. If you know what gets on the other persons nerves, don’t to that. I know personality wise we don’t do nothing that we both disagree with, I don’t speak for him and he don’t speak for me. I don’t make comments for the group because I’m not the group myself and keeping that in the back of your mind makes things go easy. You’ll never have that “Why you ain’t tell me?” or “I didn’t know about that” conversation. Especially music wise. I dont push no envelopes I know that he ain’t 100% feelin’ cause its me and it’s him too. If i was doing my own shit I would’ve done my own shit. That means the ideas must be split. I think it doesn’t work with a lot of people cause they wanna be solo stars but I couldn’t have done this by myself so I’m comfortable with that.

Let’s talk about this whole “experiment” situation with the dude from S.O.U.L Purpose, how did you feel about the end result?

Mikey: I don’t know that guy and I’ve watched the videos and i dont know we really didnt pay attention very
much we’re kinda focused on what we’re doing right now – it wasn’t really on my radar. Its like you’re
walking down the street and little kids are throwing rocks at you but they’re missing. We just kept walking
forward and didn’t look back. So I don’t get caught up in stuff like that cause we dont get caught up in
stuff like that, it didn’t knock me off my tracks. Cause we in a zone right now that we can’t be taken out or creative and writing wise.

Chuck: He said The Cool Kids name and got huge – everybody knows him now, didn’t nobody know him until
he said our name. He knew that, like he knew that “if I did something about The Cool Kids I would be known”.
It’s whatever, somebody could diss us all day – you can’t out rap us. If we wanted to battle him back it would be a wrap. I knew it wasn’t personal, if he saw us right he probly say what up so its like, when he [Mikey] didn’t care I didn’t care.

URB: See I think that comes from being in a position that your in because you guys are called “The Cool Kids”, and the name that you guys have ties in to a type of style that people look to “set the standard”, did you guys plan that when you chose to be called The Cool Kids? 

Mikey: What you descried, that would be “the hip kids”. The hip kids are the ones that are on to of the
trends and always on top of the latest what-have-you’s. Cool people never shift from what they’re doing. They not up-front, they’re not the loud guys, the dude dancing on the tryna get attention. They’re the dude’s on the wall chillin that everybody knows and everybody’s like “that dude is cool”, he’s on his own thing but he’s mad cool and people look up to that. Cool is just timeless and hip is something it’s own.  We would have been called “The Hip Kids” if that was the case.

About the Perfect Square Mixtape

Thank you to everyone who has been by my side and helpped me out with this project like Brian, David, and Matt. The homies, Belvi, Justin, and JP. And all my music connects like Julez and Val. Thank you to everyone who supports me as an artist and a specail thanks to everyone who supports me as a person. I have come to realize that everyone has busy lives and to get someone to think for a minute about someone other than themselves is a challenge - so with that I thank you.

You might have a few concerns about the mixtape. Yes I did the cover on Microsoft Paint and the tracks may be out of order, it didn’t matter to me anymore. I felt that this whole project was a huge weight on my back and just wanted to let it go and get out there. People still don’t think that I rap! They don’t know what to think about me sometimes and when you can’t classify something you either ignore it or you do some more research. I was tired of being ignored. Sometimes I just want to put myself out there and just be like everybody else. I want to rap over “A Milli” and have a five layered hyped up verse with a random DJ over it. But I don’t, because choices like that determine wheither an artist original or not.

My music is for the small percentage of this generation who want to have a stronger connection with the artist they’re listening to. Not everyone can go to the club because they have to work on Friday and Saturday nights. They can’t do 80 in the fast lane because they’re on the bus. So while they are on the bus they can listen to this and vibe. I wrote these songs and re-wrote them and some I threw away just so you could relate, laugh, and maybe get through the day. And to you artist, emcees, rappers out there, know that this isn’t even the best I’ve came up with, I got verses that kill your whole mixtapes and albums that you ain’t even written yet. So when you listen to the Perfect Square know that this is just my introduction. I’m just putting the quarter in and pressing the start button, so when the games over don’t be suprised if you see the initals, N R D!

Perfect Square Mixtape is here!!!

Click here to download!

My 15 seconds

http://hypebeast.com/2008/06/insa-x-rogue-status-tits-ass/#more-26794

And before I go . . .

Just Mite (Be Alright) – nerd

return of the Jedi

As Belvi said “You were the star for today”. Hopefully there will be more days like this.

During my “Stone Cold Steve Austin intro”. Guess Shawn Chrystopher thinks nobody knows me. (*Also pictured Rich, C-San, 3-1-0, and Lite)

Yes thats a Randys Doughnuts Tee shirt (L.E.K)

(Dark)

+ (Light)

=

The homegurl Zee playing my main lady!

. . . Thanks ‘Spliff we’ll have to do it again sometime!

- DnM

I know it already happend but . . .

To live and rhyme in LA

Natives of Floss/Boss/Cost Angeles have been priveliged to get to hear a preview of the second arrival of the West Coast region of music to the top of the industry. There are the O.G’s like Snopp Dogg and Ice Cube leading the way for new MC’s and showing them how to get independant money.

Then you have a seperation in rap sub-groups such as The New West, which are headlined by artist like Bad Lucc, Glasses Malone, Jay Rock, and Roscoe Umali. (The Game has already earned stripes to be placed anywhere in these category’s)

Their style is vintage westcoast beats with new lyrics. The content is usually about what goes on in the hood and how people in the “hood” feel about what matters to them in the world.

But not everybody fits into the New West because either they feel that they don’t have enough “street cred” or was never brought up in the typical “hood” where the ice cream truck comes around on a truck and a cart and you never hung out in front of the liquor store unless you banged.

I call this group, Left of the West. These rappers produce music that is more east coast influenced either with experimental beats or introspective lyrics. Artist like Pac Div, Blu, Shawn Chyristopher, & U-N-I. They might not have been from or to the hood but they recognize the struggles and but that pain as well as creative influence in their songs.

It’s important that we listen and support all of these type of music. Xibit said on the radio about five years back that “we don’t support each other”. I think back to the early 90’s went major artist were in the same music videos and movies, mostly on the east coast, but there is no reason that the west coast can have the same love. I’m not going to hate on a rapper because they are still talking about banging and killing, I still listen to Bow Down by Westside Connection, cause its raw. I actually belived that they where capable of doing what they where talking about. Personaly I don’t think that it is progressive but I have a mind to understand that and most people dont and become easily influenced by music.

And New West rappers should not hate on the Left of the West rappers because its not they fault that they don’t want to sound “hard” on the track. You get more respect in the streets for being who you are than perpetrating. Most of those artist are brave enough to be themselves in time where people would sell out to make a hit and they create songs that are just conceptually mind blowing.

If you feel that you don’t fit in any of these categories then I recognize you too because I see music as music and the industry is totaly differenet. I see the people are starting to care more about the music, now it’s the rappers turn.

- DnM