Honestly, not many artists make it out of my part of town. Carmichael is an idyllic suburban soccer mom paradise, which is not the most conducive for music of any emotional weight. This is why I’m especially thankful there are still artists like Michael Ray (not to be confused with the hunky yet ultimately mediocre Nashville country singer), who can throw down deep, technical blues like nobody’s business, instead of the usual bevy of white 18-year-olds on Ableton rapping about how much they like rapping to their Abletons at their parent’s house.

Ray’s newest EP, Live at the Old I, is a stripped-down tour de force. Take for instance the final song “I’ll Be Doing Fine.” What starts as a pacing, prowling guitar solo echoing in the silence, slows and elongates into a classical piece (by a famous composer I should be able to name as a “music journalist”), before sliding again into a gritty rock ‘n’ roll lick right into Ray’s sandpaper smooth growl. The simple blues riff stretches the tension to a breaking point until Ray explodes out into the power chords and does the ultraviolence to his vocal chords.

It’s cathartic. It’s raw like an exposed nerve. And it’s just one guy and an electric guitar. For the sake of critical objectivism, I should say that the recordings are rough, the song compositions are simple (again, one man, one guitar), but what’s exciting here is the potential. Ray has only been working as a musician full-time for the past year and a half or so, and yet he’s booked a regular gig at the Torch Club, he hosts an open mic at Dive Bar and is signed to Radiant Soul Records. He’s putting out his live EP in a few weeks, he’s recording a new album and collaborating with big name artists in Sacramento and booking a tour where he plans to paratroop the West Coast by spending months in Portland and Seattle respectively to spread his music to as many people as he can.

We met recently at an Insight Coffee shop, where he took pity on a young man with a crippling hangover (me) and laid out his plans for world domination, his early hip-hop career as a rapping evangelist and his beef with Taylor Swift.

When and how did you get started playing music?
I started playing harmonica when I was 8. My parents were kind of splitting up around that time. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but my dad gave me a harmonica right around then. He said, “Start messing with this,” and he played some. So I played blues and stuff and played a few performances at churches and things like that. I’d sometimes do this thing where I’d rap. I used to do this Jesus rap thing.

You did some Jesus rap? Did you kill it?
When I was like 10 or something. I mean I was terrified but it was kind of cool because I got to get that out of the way when I was young. So I did a couple performances.

So you did the church thing and then you started playing guitar?
Yeah I started playing guitar around 12. It was a “fake it until you make it,” kinda thing. Like if you had asked 13-year-old me I’d be like, “Oh yeah I’m one of the best guitar players ever!” When I didn’t know shit, I was trying to work out a blues scale or whatever. So I just dove into it. I went to the high school I did because of the music program, and at that point music was all I did. For the most part, I didn’t really go to too many of the other classes, you know? I played guitar in the jazz band and then played trombone for a year or two too for the concert band. I’d play three to five hours at school every day and then go home and play for another five or something. I got experience gigging and how to be a professional. It’s no joke over there, Rio Americano has a better band than some college bands. Then after high school, I started producing making beats and rapping.

You stayed with the rapping?
Yeah I got into rap after high school I guess. I mean as cool as all the jazz and stuff I was learning at Rio was, if you asked that guy sitting over there what he knows about jazz, it’s not going to be much. A lot of people know hip-hop. You want music that’s going to be able to speak to people about something they’re going to understand. Like, a lot of people don’t get tritone substitutions over rhythm changes, you know?

Yeah, I’m one of them.
[Laughs] So yeah, I started getting into that. And basically I was just practicing doing my thing, recording and about a year and a half ago I just really dove into it. I decided I was just going to be a musician no matter what. I spent the first four months … hungry, trying to pay rent the best I could. Then things finally started to click. It took a lot of grinding and a lot of meeting people, getting out there, playing every gig and open mic I could. I just found a way to make it happen. After six months or so, it became a viable way to make money. But like, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a car, I rent a room in an apartment and I’m moving real soon, it’s just kinda crazy.

Well can you go into what you’re working on for your upcoming album?
It’s kind of a quirkier sort of …

Quirky?
I mean like, this live one, like I said it’s really raw. You’ve heard it, you get a feel for it. It’s not like Taylor Swift songs. [Pauses] Not to say that this next one is like Taylor Swift songs or anything, but there’s a little more humor in it, little more wordplay. Kinda silly, pop-y I guess, for a blues album. There’s these little contradictions in the lyrics sometimes. For instance there’s a song on there called “The Flame Club Song,” and the idea is that I wrote it after going to the Flame Club one night with my friend—feeling the way you were feeling this morning—the next day. The lyrics at one point are like “I’ll tell you right now/I’m never going to the Flame Club again,” tongue-in-cheek kind of stuff, like I’m never drinking again. It’s a blues album, but it’s not a gut-wrenching, scream-your-soul-out kind of blues. A little more pop-y, I’m not doing like “Shake it Off” covers or anything like that.

So you’ve really got something against Taylor Swift, huh?
Don’t know why I keep bringing her up, it’s just an accident I swear … No, no, she’s good. Yeah, it’s blues, there’s guitar solos, harmonica and uh all kind of bluesy stuff, but at the same time it’s a little lighter. I’m just really stoked about it.

I’ve interviewed some artists who kinda complain that there wasn’t enough places to play or not enough attention in Sacramento, what do you think about the scene here in Sacramento?
Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of that, too. It’s one of those things that comes up over and over when you talk to musicians or on Facebook or whatever. I couldn’t disagree with it more. Even this morning I was playing that farmer’s market thing and they hired two musicians themselves. Myself and a guy playing keyboards and singing within a block of each other. But between us, there’s a friend of mine who’s busking and then when I’m playing my set, City of Trees Brass Band comes marching right up through the middle. Then I just found which key they were in, so I started jamming with them because what are you gonna do? You can’t overpower a brass band. And I know a couple guys in the band so I say what’s up and they go marching on doing their thing. I mean, if you were there walking on that block, you would’ve seen four different musical acts outside for free for the public. I mean, it’s a beautiful town for that.

Join Michael Ray to celebrate the release of his EP Live at Old I at Old Ironsides (where else?) in Sacramento on July 1, 2016. The show gets underway at 8 p.m. and will also feature performances by Honey B. and the Cultivation and Century Got Bars. If you pay your entrance fee in advance, you’ll even get a copy of the album. To purchase a presale ticket, check out Michael Ray on Facebook at Facebook.com/michaelray916.

Once again winter has passed (if you can call that a winter), which means that spring is here and with it, the 2015 Concerts in the Park series, which officially kicks off on Friday, May 1! We’ve got your first glance at the eclectic lineup right here, and there’s a little something for everyone. Dig country music? Don’t miss May 15 with Cripple Creek Band and Golden Cadillacs. Want to throw your hands up at a hip-hop show? Mark your calendars for Blackalicious and DLRN + Stevie Nader on May 29 and a sure-to-be-insane collaboration set featuring Task1, Century Got Bars, J-Ras and Charleee on July 24. Wanna rock out with some post-hardcore? Check out Jonny Craig’s new band Slaves alongside A Lot Like Birds on June 26. Want to dance your face off? Hit up Joy and Madness on May 8. What about punk rock, you ask? Yeah, they’ve got that too. Check out Mr. T Experience, The Four Eyes and others on June 19. The indie-rock loving crowd will enjoy July 17 featuring From Indian Lakes and Sunmonks, and reggae enthusiasts can get their fix with Element of Soul on June 5 and Arden Park Roots on July 24. Peep the entire lineup below! If the artist’s name is linked, click on it to read a feature on them from a recent issue of Submerge. We’ll see you out at Cesar Chavez Plaza on Friday nights starting on May 1!

May 1 – CIP Kick-off!

Island of Black & White
Drop Dead Red
Riotmaker
DJ Epik

May 8

Joy & Madness
Sol Peligro
Zyah Belle & The Funkshun
Paul Gordon & the Ambient Experience

May 15

Cripple Creek Band
Golden Cadillacs
Be Brave Bold Robot
Ashley Barron
DJ Rawhide

May 22

Frank Hannon Band
Alex Vincent Band
Pressure Lounge
DJ Peeti-V

May 29

Blackalicious
DLRN + Stevie Nader
Element Brass Band
Druskee

June 5

Element of Soul
Burro
Once An Empire
50-Watt Heavy
TL Miller / imf.DRED

June 12

Jonah Matranga
The Storytellers
Kevin Seconds
One-Leg Chuck
DJ Elements

June 19

Mr. T Experience
The Four Eyes
The Enlows
Rebel Punk
DJ Whores

June 26

Slaves
A Lot Like Birds
Tell the Wolves
We Went to the Moon
Z Rokk

July 3

No show! Happy 4th of July!

July 10

The Soft White Sixties
The Nickel Slots
Justin Farren
Vintage Vandals
El Conductor

July 17

From Indian Lakes
Sunmonks
Xochitl
Dusty Brown

July 24 – Season Finale!

Arden Park Roots
Task1ne + Century Got Bars + J-Ras + Charleee
Ideateam
Braden Scott Band
Shaun Slaughter

Sacramento’s Century Got Bars Concocts a Modern Throwback on Her New Release, 3

The freeway is a mess on the drive down Highway 99 to Elk Grove, where Century Got Bars is busy putting the last touches on her third solo album—the aptly titled, 3.

On the road, trucks tailgate cars, motorcycles weave in-and-out of traffic, while a woman eating a cheeseburger flips me off for going the speed limit in the slow lane. I’m trying to be patient. I’ll find my Zen and not beat the shit out of my steering wheel in a fit of suburban road rage as the traffic slows to a dead halt.

Since Century sent the majority of her album the night before, I flick on the stereo and have a listen. In an instant, my car is filled with bass, bombarded with “No Private Dancer,” a modern, speedy boogaloo that at once calms my nerves and makes me want to jump out of the car and do a backspin in the bed of the truck in front of me. Track after track, Century’s 3 offers a surprising, fun, unpredictable and eclectic mix of music, from soul to R&B to rock. The 32-year-old MC seems to have found a comfortable spot within the music industry, not by keeping to one genre, but by doing whatever the hell she wants.

Often, my critique of Sacramento rap is that it’s too timid—not that it’s quiet or that it has nothing to say, but that many MCs seem to adhere tightly to conventions, stuck within the confines of gangsta rap or ’90s-style boom-bap. Sacramento rap can be predictable and mind-numbing, if you listen to enough of it.

But somehow, Century’s 3 is none of those things. The album brims with honest, straight-up modern hip-hop songs with local legends—such as the track “RU Mad,” featuring Nome Nomadd and Mic Jordan—but the best part of 3 is the unmistakable ’90s vibe on tracks like “Last Laugh,” with Oakland artist Are Too belting out a hook that takes the listener right back to the days of Cross Colours and Hi-Tec boots while Century raps in a laid-back, introspective tone (like CeeLo, back when he was in Goodie Mob). There’s a lot to like on this album. There’s poetry, humor, earnestness—and best of all, there’s sprawling beauty and good, old-fashioned fun.

When I wind through a few suburban neighborhoods and pull up to Brian “AlienLogik” Baptista’s home studio, “The End,” a clean, energetic track featuring Mahtie Bush, Luke Tailor and maybe the best The Doors sample in the history of rap, bangs from the speakers. By the time Century’s verse, full of well-timed and wry observations (“Quit being bitter, nigga, pick up a book or pick up a Nook”) my face is plastered with a silly grin.

Usually when people say ‘90s, they think golden era/boom-bap, but your album is different—more SWV and TLC.
I’m thinking R&B. I’m thinking also boom-bap, but then I was listening to Rage Against the Machine. I was listening to Nirvana. I was listening to Portishead and all kinds of people. Neo-soul. D’Angelo. I remember in the ’90s, you could be at a family reunion and one moment you would hear DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, but then the next moment you’re hearing Arrested Development and then the next moment you’re hearing Beastie Boys. Everything was eclectic. I’m a huge Alanis Morissette fan. I have Jagged Little Pill on rotation!

But that’s probably because you’re gay.
But you know what’s funny? I’m one of the real not-stereotypical gay people. I don’t hang in gay crowds and in gay clubs. I’ll go, but I like being around all people and I happen to be gay. I don’t really fall into all that. But having all that stuff played for me as a kid opened me up and it made me want to find out about other people. I just love everything different.

There’s no money in music. Why do you do it?
Because fortunately my mother raised me to have a day job. I work for Corporate America. One of the things my mother told me is, “Just know that if you ever quit your job, I will never listen to any more of your songs.” And I believed her. I have a 40 hour-a-week job to bitch about. I don’t ever have to bitch about music. I do this because I love it.

What if this album blows up? Would you quit your job?
I’ve been shelved. So I’ve gotten all the way to where they’re going to pick up your album to give you a recording contract and got shelved. So to me “big” would be getting someone to offer me distribution, even just in California. That would be a big look for me. If I could do that and not work, then great. Plus, I got student loans. Nobody has time for advances and all that crap from the labels when I owe my whole college education.

Did college teach you anything that you need to know now?
I think the environment of college did. I don’t know if the classes did. I hate to say that. Also, I went to school for audio engineering at The Art Institute of Atlanta. I got to learn a lot about what good quality sound sounds like. So when I found AlienLogik, he knows the fundamentals of what I learned in Atlanta. So I can mess with this dude and know he will not have me out here sounding like, “Did they [record] this in some shallow cave with a curtain over them?”

People contact you all the time asking for verses when they haven’t heard your music.
That happens a lot and I’m very nice to people when they do that. I don’t like it when people hit you up and are like, “Hey, you look dope. Can I get a track?” You didn’t even take one minute to Google my name. You didn’t even try to press play on the song and you’re asking me for a track?

Why do people do that?
Because people don’t want to work for anything. That’s all that it is. It’s sad because there are a lot of local rappers that have this mentality and that’s what you’ll hear on the song “The End.” We’re talking about people that have this mentality that everything should be handed to you. If someone comes to me and says, “Man, I’ve played Midtown Marauders or I played Forget Today, Remember Tomorrow, would it be OK if we [collaborated] on something?” I’m hella not rude.

How important is it to have female voices in hip-hop?
Uh, critical. I want to make sure I dispel this whole thing: I remember one time somebody said “She’ll slap me if I use the word ‘femcee’ when I talk about her.” But, look, it’s not that. Of course I’m proud to be a female and also be an MC. What’s happening is women are being conditioned to think that’s dope. I see tight females that are rappers that put “femcee” next to their thing. You’re putting yourself at a disadvantage because they’re putting you in a box. I don’t want to be a femcee. I want to be an MC that if you named your favorite rappers, period, I would come up. But females making their way through hip-hop is so important because the female’s life, the struggles that we incur … I mean, God, you guys have it easy. Do you know how many doctors’ appointments we have to go to?

Is it frustrating to spend a lot of time on an album and have not a lot of people download it or buy it?
It did when my head was in the wrong place. I was thinking more like, “Look at me!” like a lot of these people do. But I have this category. I have “Look at me!” and “Hardworking and fulfilled.” The “Look at me!” doesn’t do anything but give you five seconds of attention. And then when it goes away you’re mad because you don’t have the attention. Once I stopped caring about what everybody thought, that’s when everybody started listening.

How will this album be received?
They’ll like the fact that it’s so eclectic. There’s something for everybody on here. Everybody can feel involved. There’s not a lot of sexualized songs or a lot of straight up profanity or making one group feel bad about themselves. It’s just a happy album. Let’s get it moving. Let’s get it dancing.

Talk about Sacramento.
I want Sacramento to realize how good they have it. I’ve come here and I’ve never felt so welcomed. It’s hard to go back to your own home and everybody just knows you as the person they went to high school with. I don’t think anybody except my close family and best friends [in Detroit] have downloaded that album. And that’s hard. Because it shaped me. And I want to let them know that I’m always going to claim them even if they don’t claim me. But like the saying goes, “A prophet isn’t recognized in their own home.” But, guess what? In Sac they are! There’s a whole bunch of prophets that are recognized in their own home! And they don’t see how good they have it.

Do you feel the effects of sexism or homophobia here?
In Sac? No. God, I love Sac.

The release show for Century Got Bars’ 3 is at the Press Club Thursday, June 19. Doors open at 9 p.m.; Century’s set starts promptly at 10:30. Hosted by Andru Defeye and Miss Ashley w/D.J. Epik, Mic Jordan, Mahtie Bush, Luke Tailor and Petro. Tickets are free before 10:30, $5 after. Facebook.com/CenturyGotBARS for more info.

Music is awesome, isn’t it? Whether intentional or not, music is a big part of everyone’s lives. It’s all around us: on TV, in ads, in our headphones and earbuds attached to our smart phones with streaming audio. Chances are if you’re reading Submerge, you love music too. Even though there is more great music being made than ever and access to it is becoming easier and easier, it’s still sometimes hard to know where to look to discover new tunes. Enter Submerge’s annual year-end best-of list! In 2013 there were so many amazing albums released that we actually expanded this story to feature the top 30 instead of the top 20. You’ll notice that a lot of this list, approximately 50 percent, is local. That’s not by mistake. That’s not because we tried to include local albums just to round out our list. No, we just have that much talent right here in our own city.

Compiled by all of our contributing writers and staff, we hope this list will help you discover something new. And because all of our attention spans are so short nowadays (are you still with us?), we kept our reviews to 140 characters or less, because we all know that reading someone’s short, to-the-point Twitter post is a helluva lot better than reading someone’s four-paragraph-long Facebook rant. Now, set forth and discover some new jams! Who knows, your new favorite band/album may be waiting for you somewhere on this list.

30.

Danny Brown
Old

Fool’s Gold

What can you say about Danny Brown? He’s rap’s Jim Morrison, The Lizard King. Old has been on repeat since the day I got it. And will be.

29.

Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels

Fool’s Gold

As dope as promised, it gets no better than this. Killer Mike is at his best, and El-P provides the perfect sonic-scape for destruction.

28.

Biosexual
The Window Wants the Bedroom

Debacle

Fantastically produced debut album of avant-garde supergroup featuring the great Jocelyn of ALAK, brother Michael RJ Saalman and Zac Nelson.

27.

Paper Pistols
Deliver Us From Chemicals

Self-released

2 can do it all. Skinner & Lydell are all binary: beard/belle; drum/voice; age/youth; decadent/austere; beautiful/music.

26.

EGG
Overly Easy

Self-released

If Cake and Phish had a baby? Close, but doesn’t quite describe this amazing band. An infectious sound that makes you wanna get up and GO.

25.

M.I.A.
Matangi

N.E.E.T.

M.I.A. is pissed off, and still fresh as ever, rapping over aggressive beats and keeping the Sri Lankan sound alive.

24.

The Men
New Moon

Sacred Bones

Brooklyn noise punks retreat to a rural cabin, finding a balance between a Mudhoney dustup and a Grateful Dead peace-in.

23.

Gauntlet Hair
Stills

Dead Oceans

Gauntlet Hair dropped the dopest, weirdest album we’ve heard in a minute and then immediately broke up. Spacey, strange, with a dash of pop.

22.

Jacuzzi Boys
Jacuzzi Boys

Hardly Art

The Miami trio switched things up with a more polished than pure garage sound. Still playful and infectious, just adding new dimensions.

21.

Gap Dream
Shine Your Light

Burger

Mid-tempo sex appeal born of psychedelic melancholy and rock ‘n’ roll disco; drugs, dance, drugs, booze, dance, fuck.

20.

Miley Cyrus
Bangerz

RCA
 
Crying cats ftw! The most dissed/discussed AoY; w/ hits by Dr. Luke, Pharrell & Mike WiLL, twerk! This is Miley’s year.

19.

Chuuwee
Thrill

Self-released

With rap albums you usually either get bangin’ trap beats OR real lyricism. On Thrill you get both. One of Sac’s best in top form.

18.

Century Got Bars & Bru Lei
Midtown Marauders

Self-released

A flawless Tribe tribute and audible tour of this fair city’s nucleus. If you’ve spent more than five seconds in Midtown, you want this. 

17.

David Bowie
The Next Day

RCA

Charming, confidently progressive with kick-ass guitar solos. It’s classic Bowie with a modern, enthusiastically suspended twist.

16.

Black Sabbath
13

Vertigo/Universal

Pure smokin’ stoner doom rock at its finest! Timeless lyrics and riffs. This album picks up where the band left off with Ozzy 30 years ago.

15.

Nails
Abandon All Life 

Southern Lord

Yeah, it’s a light version of Unsilent Death (the most brutal album ever), but it’s still hard and evil enough to kill your grandma.   

14.

Bombino
Nomad

Nonesuch

A perfect album for trekking the Sahara. Blues guitar, smooth Tuareg vox, steady rhythm. Produced by Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys).

13.

Meat Puppets
Rat Farm

Megaforce Records

Return to form for desert-baked Brothers Kirkwood. Simple, honest, catchy… Bare bones and poignant. May the Puppets live forever.

12.

Foals
Holy Fire

Transgressive

With Holy Fire, these British boys delivered their most focused (and heaviest) album to date, bringing a new meaning to “modern rock.”

11.

City of Vain
Back Against the Wall

Self-released

Sacto punkers bring forth one of the best punk rock records of the year, not just locally, but globally. Warm tones and classic style!

10.

Middle Class Rut
Pick Up Your Head

Bright Antenna

More fierce rock ‘n’ roll from Sac’s Dynamic Duo…and we <3 it! Grimy grooves and distorted chaos mark MC Rut’s best album to date.

09.

Horseneck
The Worst People Ever

Artery

Booze-fueled bone-breaking sludge metal with a sense of humor. This EP gives Sac’s heavy music fans something to smile about.

08.

Tel Cairo
Voice of Reason

Illicit Artists

Tel Cairo is the best kind of weird. If Kurt Cobain made hip-hop music in space it would sound like Tel Cairo’s Voice of Reason.

07.

Foxygen
We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

Jagjaguwar

Flamboyantly lilting pop with occasional Jagger twists; creates proneness for nymph-like prancing, sometimes mincing.

06.

Death Grips
Government Plates

Self-released

A dizzying mix of poetry, yelling and other stuff people hate. But in the eloquent words of MC Ride, “Fuck your idols/ Suck my dick.”

05. 

Screature
Screature

Ethel Scull

A solid debut by the Sacramento quartet. Guttural lyrical torrents coalesce with shadowy, rhythmic tones, blending into a dynamic framework of sound.

04.

!!!
THR!!!ER

Warp Records

Your favorite dance-punk band is back again with more rump shaking, baby making, all-night-party-inducing tunes. Instant classic!

03.

Cove
Candles

Self-released

It’s an insightful album. An emotional excavation replete with lyrical fluidity, melodic flirtations and a groovy aftertaste.

02.

Doombird
Cygnus

Eightmaps

Vivid percussive landscapes seen through a celestial-tinged lens. Spacey harmonies embedded within hypnotic textures and bright timbres.

01.

Chelsea Wolfe
Pain Is Beauty

Sargent House

A beautifully haunting album. Wolfe’s ghostly vocals, layered with cascading guitars, violins and synths, will put you in a trance.

Sacramento’s hip-hop provocateur lives a family life in the burbs, but maintains his hunger

Although it was several years ago, it seems like just yesterday that rapper, producer, MC and B-boy Mahtie Bush founded the highly charged Sac Hates Hip-Hop movement—a knee-jerk reaction to Sacramento clubs and radio stations that had almost overnight turned their backs on rap music. And just as quickly, Bush showed up in every local paper, spewing his dissatisfied version of a “state of the city” address.

Well times sure do change. Don’t get me wrong, Bush is still just as hungry as he ever was, but these days his tactics are drastically different. No longer does the MC strive to be the city’s poster child for raising hell; he simply wants to flex his healthy work ethic and, of course, his music. Take Bush’s latest mixtape, Hate is Love Part II, for example. The body of work displays an MC who hasn’t let up. The beats bang with struggle, the lyrics resonate with purpose and it doesn’t hurt that the mixtape is hosted by the notorious DJ G.I. Joe (Immortal Technique), who leads the listener through a 13-track tape filled with hardcore bangers, crafted strictly for rap purists.

From troublemaker to workaholic, it’s been fascinating to track the progression of Mahtie Bush, whose only constant seems to be his unpredictability. In fact, the only thing we can be sure of is that Bush won’t go away.

When I caught up with him, Bush had just gotten home from work and was sprawled out with his wife in the luxury of their new, suburban Natomas home. Yup, it’s some American Dream type shit; some I wear a silk robe when I get home from work, so fuck you kind of stuff; an I buy organic kale now, fool, what now?! type scenario; an—ah, you get the point. Whatever Bush is now is a far cry from that poor-ass, frustrated, jumpy Mahtie Bush I came to know seven years ago. But he still has a lot to say, plus he’s got some sort of super important, hushed, top-secret project on the way.

What are you doing right now?
Right now I’m looking at dogs with my wife online.

You guys are dog shopping?
Yeah, I want a pit—a bully. A small one.

Ha! That’s some seriously stereotypical rap shit.
I ain’t going to put no chain on it or nothing. I ain’t going to be no Michael Vick about it.

Settling down, getting married, looking for a dog…does that change the way you rhyme?
It doesn’t really change the way I rhyme. I feel more at ease now. I don’t know what everybody else’s definition of success is or what their definition of making it is, but for me, it was having a house, having a car, having a yard, having a wife… I don’t have to go to a one-bedroom apartment anymore and feel like I’m boxed in. I’m like, “Fool, I got a house!” I’m on some grown man shit now. I got a mortgage payment. I look at rap totally different now.

You’re not going to start wearing sweater vests and singing smooth love ballads now, are you?
No. I did “Is She Out There?” and that’s as far as it goes.

Tell me about your Hate is Love Part II mixtape.
The first one I just did because it was after the whole Sac Hates Hip-Hop thing. I was still networking with Chino XL at the time and so I asked him if he’d host it… This second one, I wanted to revisit it because I really like how DJ G.I. Joe scratches. He’s a dope ass DJ.
So I wanted to revisit it and wanted to do more personal stuff. I wanted to talk about my family life and the streets I grew up on.

Has anything changed since the Sac Hates Hip-Hop movement?
No. Shit is still the same. Name a radio station out here that’s playing any locals besides 98 Rock. I think it’s worse now because we took radio for granted by having The Future Flava show and 103.5, but now we don’t have none of them and it sucks. I don’t give a fuck. What’s worse is that I’m older…and I don’t care.

That whole Sac Hates movement was fun though, right?
It was fun to a point, man. Some of it was annoying. Some of it was cool. I wouldn’t change anything but maybe who I associated with at the time. I had people spray painting doors, like, “FUCK BUSH.”

That’s cool, though. I love that kind of stuff. Do you still get haters?
Every once and a while I’ll have somebody poppin’ off. I don’t even sweat it. At this point, a lot of people will say something… I don’t really care. I’ll take a picture of it and be like, “This is dope.” It cracks me up. It’s like, I know you’re probably struggling—you wish you were on a show you didn’t have to pay to play for, you probably wish you didn’t have to sell tickets, you wish you didn’t have to buy YouTube views…and I couldn’t really care less because I got my feet up watching Breaking Bad.

Rap is so shitty right now. I hate it. What the fuck is wrong with rap?
I think it’s so bad that when you have somebody mediocre, you just attach yourself to him, like, “Yeah, this dude is the shit.”

That’s what I’m saying. Exactly.
I don’t really listen to everybody. I do like Kendrick Lamar. I wish Jay Electronica would have came out. I don’t know what happened with him. I like Odd Future at times.

Yeah, when they have a good song it’s really good, but they have a million bad songs.
There’s this dude and I can’t think of his name right now—a fat white guy from Queens.

Action Bronson?
He’s so dope to me. Action Bronson just shitted on people, yo. Everybody’s giving hype to this other kid from New York, but I think Chuuwee is killing him. I think he actually bit Chuuwee to be honest.

Joey Bada$$?
Everybody loves Joey Bada$$. He’s alright. Chuuwee will smoke that fool. That’s it, though. I like Tech N9ne. I like Immortal Technique. I like grimy-ass hip-hop—the “fuck you” hip-hop. Chino XL is my favorite rapper, so it is what it is.

Do you ever worry about growing old in hip-hop?
I don’t care about that shit. I feel like my reason for getting into hip-hop wasn’t because I wanted to be young. This is a young man’s sport, I get it, but…you can be an artist until you’re however old you want to be. Do what you want to make yourself feel happy.

I mean, Krs-One is pushing…what, a 100 years old?
He’s still touring and selling out shows. And people are still scared of him. I dare you to battle Krs-One.

So what other projects do you have coming out?
I’ve got a project with my group Alumni finally about to drop, most likely in the summertime. Even before that I have an EP that I’m doing. The EP is, um, can I tell you off the record?

Mahtie Bush will perform with Century Got Bars on April 26, 2013 at All Stars Sports Bar in Woodland (102 Main St, Woodland, Calif.) and then again on April 27, 2013 at the Sactown Underground/Freestyle Session Nor Cal B-boy jam, which will take place at the Old Sugar Mill (35265 Willow Avenue, in Clarksburg, Calif.) The event gets underway at 3 p.m. and tickets are $10 pre-sale/$15 at the door. Tickets can be purchased through Freshandflyproductions.com. Download the Hate is Love Part II mixtape at Mahtiebush916.bandcamp.com or check with Thisizbush.com for more info.

After tossing the idea around for years, the guys in local jam-based reggae/rock band ZuhG have finally decided to act upon their urge to throw a Dr. Dre Tribute Show on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012 at Harlow’s! “We’re excited it’s finally happening,” Bryan Nichols, frontman of ZuhG, told Submerge. “The Chronic 2001 is probably the most listened to album in the ZuhG van when we tour. Everyone loves The Chronic.”

Nichols and crew have assembled a sweet backing band for the show including himself and fellow ZuhG-er JR Halliday along with drummer Katayo Moore (aka Lady Rhythm) and keyboardist Chez Gonzales. Will Robinson from The Old Screen Door will be singing some of Nate Dogg’s parts, and plenty of guest MCs will take the stage throughout the night, including Task1ne, RIZ, Century Got Bars, Kevin (from The Hooliganz), Charleee (from ZuhG) and Ernie (from Who Cares).

“Hip-hop is a lot of fun to play with a band. It’s different in a lot of ways compared to rock,” said Nichols, who has had plenty of experience backing up hip-hop artists (Random Abiladeze and RIZ just to name a couple). “You have to stay in the pocket and not be too flashy. You can’t be afraid to play the same riff over and over again. The Chronic has some of the most catchy bass lines and guitar riffs, I love it.”

Look forward to hearing classic songs like “The Next Episode,” “Forgot About Dre,” “Fuck You,” “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang,” and plenty of others. The show starts at 9 p.m., is 21-and-over and the cover will be $10–a small price to pay for what will surely be a super fun and memorable night. And of course, this blurb wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory Nate Dogg line, “Smoke weed everyday!”