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By Robyn Rubinstein
Crown City Rockers by Hanes |
It's no secret that rap music is big business in America today. What began as a voice for the disenfranchised and ignored is now a major driving force behind large-scale marketing campaigns world-wide. Pepsi, cell phones, and sneakers are mere slivers of the ever-expanding advertising and merchandising pie. Jay-Z has his own vodka, and Diddy hawks ProActive acne solutions. It might make the discerning music fan feel that hip-hop is just too commercial and over-produced to be good. I'd like to tell you how wrong you are. There are a handful of supremely talented artists poised and ready to bring the poetry, the soul, and the art back to what is - when done correctly - undoubtedly an art form, back to hip-hop. The Crown City Rockers are eagerly ready to blaze this trail, having been described more than once as "the next phase of hip-hop." This five-piece ensemble stretches far beyond the prevalent conception of a hip-hop band, and they are teetering on the cusp of something huge.
Raashan :: Crown City Rockers |
MC Raashan Ahmad, keyboardist Kat Ouano, producer and bassist Ethan Parsonage, (a.k.a. Headnodic) producer Woodstock, and drummer Max MacVeety have created a distinct niche for themselves lodged between the amorphous funk/jazz/jam genre and the clearer-cut lines of hip-hop. They bring thoughtful rhymes out to play with blazing, funk-laden instrumentation and an undeniable groove. The music integrates aspects of post-bop and soul jazz, the visceral elements of Headhunters-inspired funk, and the precisely produced beats and rhymes of rap. The Rockers are a throwback to funk and an innovative step forward on the mic at the same time. The musicianship is razor sharp, with addictive grooves and discerning lyrics.
It started in New York with some tables and mics
Now every country on the planet got somebody who write
...Ripping next level music with the mic in my hand
Where my friends is fam you hear the music groove to it
Being first generation hip-hop music
–B-Boy
It's the end of the world as we know it
Yeah it's the changing of times
For better or worse or which way you're hopping the line
Will you find yourself victorious or on the side of the dying?
And when it's all said and done
Was it fun or wasted on crying?
-Balance
Max and Raashan by S. Anderson |
These five inspired musicians are a confluence of diverse musical backgrounds who have come together to create the exact sound that music is lacking right now. Their shows are an evocative funky-fresh party that challenge you lyrically and move you physically. The collective skill and passion in the group is overwhelming. A few days before they were to hit the road on tour, Kat, Raashan, and I got some coffee and talked shop.
Kat, Ethan, and Max are three musicians who met at the esteemed Berklee School of Music in Boston in the late 1990's. As hip-hop grew up, so did Raashan and Woodstock in Pasadena, immersed in b-boy culture. Raashan moved to Boston in 1996 and discovered the voracious Boston b-boy scene at various open mic nights around the city. "Cats were freestyling, beatboxing, and battling. Every MC had so much hunger and fire, like if they couldn't get these words out they would explode." At one battle he met Moe Pope, who would later be the first MC for the band and a good friend to all. Kat, Ethan, and Max were also frequenting those same open mics and had landed a weekly gig playing rare funk grooves at a seedy bar in the Mission Hill district of Boston. Raashan spent almost all of his time writing, freestyling, beat boxing, and performing until the Boston winter became too much to handle, and he returned to Pasadena.
Soon after his return to California, Moe was calling Raashan repeatedly, urging him to come back east and check out the band he had hooked up with, at the time called Mission.
Kat :: Crown City Rockers |
"I was living with Moe then," Kat explains, "and he used to call Raashan and beat box over the phone to get him to come back. He called him once a week."
Raashan smiles at the memory. "He would rap for me and play me beats that Ethan had made, and I was into it. I said I'd only do it if we would be gone by winter because I couldn't take another winter in Boston."
Raashan returned to Boston and soon after, introduced his longtime friend, producer Woodstock, to the band. "Woodstock came to visit us, started making beats with Ethan, and they just clicked instantly," says Kat. "He was supposed to come for a week and stayed for over a month." All the pieces were in place, but there were a few key obstacles yet to overcome. One was the name. A 1960's British rock group named Mission UK asked them to cease and desist using the moniker Mission, so they became Crown City Rockers, an homage to Pasadena and the old-school vibe they represent. Another bump in the road was actually a major traffic accident.
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For the rap purists, we're going to force-feed them instruments, and for the jam fans, we're going to make them listen to an MC. I really feel like our music has something for everyone.
-Raashan |
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Photo of Raashan by Matt Reamer
"We decided to move from Boston to Oakland, and as if it wasn't enough of a process moving five people and all their shit across the country, my house in Boston burns down two days before we're supposed to leave," Raashan says with a wry smile. "I would have been left with nothing, but word got around about the fire, and at the band's going-away party that same night, all of my friends replaced everything I had lost. Turntables, clothes, records, it was amazing."
Crown City Rockers by J. Libby |
Kat jumps in, "Two days later we finally get everything together, and we hit the road late at night. All the adrenaline from finally getting on the road subsides after we've been driving for about an hour. We're in a Mazda MPV towing a U-Haul, and everything is jam-packed. All of a sudden BOOOOOM...CRASH...SMACK. It's the worst noise you've ever heard. I'm driving, and I look up and see taillights zoom past us then off in the distance getting smaller. An 18-wheeler hit the U-haul and kept going. Didn't even slow down. We pull over and get out, and everyone is OK, but our stuff, our instruments are all over the highway."
"Like road kill," says Raashan.
"My Hammond B-3, Max's drums, Ethan had this beautiful bass...
Crown City Rockers Diggin' for Records |
"All of the turntables and stuff that all of my friends had just replaced for me after the fire, all ruined, all over the freeway."
In this case, the police did indeed protect and serve and caught the truck driver who rammed their U-haul further up the road. The insurance money from that accident not only replaced their instruments but also financed their first EP. Sometimes, there is divine justice.
Crown City is often described as "organic" hip-hop. Kat and Raashan agree that is an apt description before they agree on the definition of the term.
"I think it's live instrumentation," Kat says.
"No, because Jurassic 5, Blackalicious, and De La Soul are organic hip-hop," Raashan shoots back.
Max & Ethan by Matt Reamer |
"Honestly, I really don't know what it is, but my best guess is non-commercial hip-hop. Non booty hip-hop," Kat says. "The whole label thing can be pretty stifling. We come from such varied musical backgrounds that we make something that is hard to define. We don't sound like most rap groups because we have live instruments, and we don't sound like most jambands because we have an MC."
"I grew up listening to traditional hip-hop, and I didn't really know anything else besides that," Raashan says. For a while, everything else just sounded weird because it wasn't what I was used to, kind of like walking with blinders on. We're trying to take those blinders off people. For the rap purists, we're going to force-feed them instruments, and for the jam fans, we're going to make them listen to an MC. I really feel like our music has something for everyone, no matter what musical background you come from. We're still searching for our audience, and I know that they're out there. They just haven't heard us yet. When those folks find us, then I think we've 'made it' as a band. I want to look out in the audience and see everyone – ravers, moms, hipsters, thugs, and hippies all partying together."
Though they are trying to cram new music down people's throats, they are not trying to force their views on anyone.
Crown City Rockers by Matt Reamer |
"I don't want to be a preachy rapper" relates Raashan. "The last thing I want to do is force my views on anyone and get all uptight about people 'getting the message.' People will get what they are open to, and folks are open when they are dancing and having fun. I want people to dance and party and catch a lyric and be like 'snap, did you hear what he said?' and then be inspired to spread the word of peace and love. There is some quote, something like 'If I can't dance, I don't want to be a part of your revolution.' Dance, man. Don't take yourself so seriously."
"Party and revolution," Kat quips.
I have a sudden compelling desire to have 'Party and Revolution' tattooed prominently on my person.
Crown City Rockers |
"It's not unheard of in music to be popular and ground-breaking. Popular music hasn't always been booty-hop," Raashan continues. Marvin Gaye was popular. In the early days of hip-hop, Rakim and KRS-One and Tribe Called Quest were popular. Growing up as a poor black youth in L.A. at the same time that hip-hop was advancing as a culture and hearing those guys saying revolutionary things about black people, it opened up my mind and made me stand a little bit taller. And that was on the radio. If we could do that... that would be it," he laughs.
The Crown City Rockers are on tour now, dissolving musical boundaries and preconceived notions as they tear the roof off. The Revolution may not be televised, but when it goes down, the Crown City Rockers are likely to be playing the soundtrack.
Rhyme writing pressure is on
I wanna move to the desert, play guitar songs
Move away from the big city crime and fear
'Cept I know the world needs me here, you too.
–Another Day
Will the Crown City Rockers be "the next phase of hip-hop?" We can only hope to be so lucky, and you owe it to yourself to see just how good the next phase can be.
JamBase | Worldwide
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