Local Rapper Blee Gets Cooking in the Studio and in the Kitchen
A peppery waft of aromatics seduces the palate as a mélange of vegetables is introduced with a hiss to a searingly hot, well-seasoned stir fry pan. The chef delights in the fragrance emanating from his cooking vessel and bops his head up and down in time with the hip-hop track bumping in the background, as if in approval of his edible creation.
This isn’t a demonstration by one of the city’s culinary bigwigs or a lesson on the fine art of stir-fry at a cooking class, but rather the creation from the kitchen of local rap artist, music impresario and organic food-lover, Blee.
As the artist prepares for the release of his sophomore effort on July 9, aptly titled Hotwater Cornbread, the rapper talks music, cookery and his passion for clean eating.
“I just wanted something really clean…plus it’s hot [outside] and when it’s hot, you don’t want to invest a lot of time in cooking,” Blee says. “I’m inspired by friends of mine who have really turned their lives around by eating clean.”
Putting the final flourishes to his Brussels sprouts, asparagus and flank steak creation, accompanied by a simple salad of spring greens and baby carrots and adorned with a smattering of perfumed raspberries, the self-anointed “stir-fry technician” reflects on his artistic vision.
“I get shit started,” Blee says. “I’ve done block parties, I’ve had my own radio show, I’ve done different things and I wear different belts, but I’m primarily an artist first and then a promoter.”
With a listening party slated for July 13, 2013 at Omina Laboratories, and a CD release party on deck July 20, 2013 at Capitol Garage, the rapper-cum-chef looks back on the year-long recording process proudly.
“Production was crazy,” Blee gushes. “I had Nicatyne from Fly High, NPire Da Great, the Gonzalez Brothers, and N8 the Gr8 from legendary group The Cuf…and I can’t forget Billy Hi-Life, this dude is incredible. He gave me [the track] “Black Skillet Commentary,” which is kind of an anthem where I’m talking about how I’m living…like eating clean and taking care of myself.”
Regarding the album’s direction, the rapper also took some calculated risks with his style.
“I wanted to stick with the same formula as Full Course Meal, but I wanted to implement a new sound because I know sonically right now it’s about EDM…and I wanted to implement that, too, without compromising my creative direction.”
Laid down at Omina Labs located on 16th Street, which has seen some of the area’s most talented MCs such as Chase Moore, C-Plus and countless others spit lyrical fire in its booths, Blee’s follow up to his debut, Full Course Meal, features whip-smart lyrics, frenetic beats and, of course, a heaping serving of food references.
“You can look forward to all of my concepts being cuisine-based,” Blee says. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to rap about food, but it inspires me.”
On a recent shopping trip to the farmers’ market, the Sacramento rapper (who credits his Dominican Republic roots and the matriarchs who instilled in him a love of food and cooking as the inspiration for his appetite for organic and whole foods), cruised through the maze of people, purveyors and verdant veggies like a pro.
“I think it really stems from my mom and her just making everything from scratch,” Blee says. “She would point fingers and make fun of the neighbors’ mothers who would make cornbread with Jiffy. That whole bravado and pride in your food, it just blended into me as a person.”
Head down to Capitol Garage on July 20 to help Blee celebrate the release of his new album Hotwater Cornbread. Party will go from 9 p.m. until close. DJ Epik, NPire, Peso Harlem and more will also be on hand. For more on Blee, go to Facebook.com/blee.gordon.
The Stir-Fry Technician’s ingredients for Beef and Vegetable Stir-fry
Blee’s commitment to preserving the integrity of the ingredients during the cooking process shines through in this quick and easy stir-fry.
“I don’t measure anything. I’m using just a splash of olive oil and fajita seasoning—that’s it, no salt, no extra seasonings. I let the vegetables speak for themselves by not cooking them for too long, just about a minute each, like the baby Brussels sprouts, you want them crunchy. Then I add the beef strips—a little Ranchers Reserve, pre-cut, no fat, real lean. Then I serve it all over a bed of jasmine rice. Add a good salad and we’re good to go. It’s guilt-free cuisine. When you eat this, your body smiles.”
Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large wok over medium-high heat. Add baby Brussels sprouts and cook, tossing occasionally, about one minute. Add one bunch trimmed asparagus and cook, tossing occasionally, about one minute. Add sliced summer squash and cook, tossing occasionally, about one minute. Add button mushrooms and cook, tossing occasionally, about one minute. Sprinkle vegetables with half of the fajita seasoning packet and cook, tossing occasionally, about one minute. Spread remaining fajita seasoning over steak then add to vegetable mixture and cook, tossing occasionally, about three to five minutes.
Cook rice according to package directions. Top about a half-cup of rice, per person, with about one cup per person of the stir-fry mixture and enjoy.
Mixed Spring Greens Salad with Raspberries
Ingredients:
4 cups mixed baby greens
1 cup baby carrots
1 handful raspberries
Scant drizzle of Asian-inspired sesame salad dressing
Inspired by a raw-food concept restaurant in Los Angeles, Blee creates a simple salad that doesn’t come in a pre-made bag, unfettered by an army of overwrought ingredients and free from the shackles of heavy salad dressings. It only takes minutes to get from fridge to plate.
Place two large handfuls of mixed baby greens in large bowl (Blee draws a pair of surgical gloves from a box that sits within reaching distance of his cooking range, for this very process). Toss with whole baby carrots. Divide greens among two plates. Top salads with raspberries and a scant amount of the Asian-inspired sesame salad dressing.
Task1ne, State Worker by Day, Rapper by Night, Unites Sacramento Hip-Hop Scene with His New Album
Superheroes assume secret identities that symbolize the life of the common man to protect themselves and the lives of those around them. The secret identity keeps the gifted rooted in reality. Following superhero archetypes, Task1ne is a rapper who protects his passion for music by doing accounting work for the state under the name Corey Lake Pruitt.
Pruitt takes the light rail to work and sits in the back. At the state office, he processes documents while quietly rapping to himself, which draws ire from his hard-nosed boss. He’s well known at the comic stores and strictly wears comic book T-shirts. At home, he has two cats that are disinterested in him unless it’s feeding time. He enjoys comics (a lot) and reviewing films. “I’ve seen Captain America 12 times,” he said. “It’s as good as a Captain America movie could have been. Is it the best comic book movie? Hell no. But, they captured Captain America, unlike Green Lantern, which was the worst piece of shit I’ve ever seen in my life.”
But, when the clubs open and the mics are plugged in, he transforms into Task1ne, a loud-mouthed, nerdcore rapper that speaks street Wookie and reps a crew called Skynet. He’s also poised to join the elite local ranks. “I’m extremely slept on,” he said. “I feel like I’m the underdog of Sacramento because I started out when everyone was already established.”
Like most superheroes, he had to polish his special powers in order to shed his colt legs. Remember Spider-Man’s first attempts with his webbing? Bad things happen to heroes not quite accustomed to their powers. Bad things like getting humiliated in a rap battle against Mahtie Bush. “I completely lost my lyrics,” Task1ne said. “It was three years ago, but to this day people call me ‘the guy that lost to Mahtie.’ It’s like what do I have to do to get people off of that?”
Determined to never lose a rhyme again, Task1ne took to mastering the art of freestyling. He freestyled at work. He kept instrumental CDs in his car to rhyme over. If a mic was offered at an onstage cipher, he seized it, until his skills off-the-dome became notorious.
“I stepped my freestyle game up,” he said. “I’m a geek, so my brain is going different places. I try to rhyme crazy things, like one time I rhymed about Pirates of Dark Water, the old cartoon. Or I said, ‘I swing from tree tops like I’m an Ewok.’ It’s in my brain. That’s what I do.”
But freestyles and a mixtape compiling a year’s worth of guest verses titled Task1ne Verses the World were not enough to earn him the Sammie nomination he sought, or a shot at a Submerge cover for that matter. Task1ne had to prove he could join the ranks of Random Abiladeze, C-Plus and Lostribe by dropping an album in 2011. “I did a lot of work last year,” he said. “I went from being in a group to being solo. I changed my style up a little bit and people started really liking it. So I started getting thrown on other people’s songs [including DLRN’s “Trill Cosby” with C-Plus]. Didn’t get nominated. That kind of hit me.”
Task1ne began working on District 916 a year and a half ago at Sound Cap Audio. He took a neutral stance for his solo record in order to work with whoever would send a beat his way. The only criteria was the producers had to be from Sacramento, which earned Task1ne beats from Lee Bannon, Adam Bomb, Nicatyne, Rufio and Jon Reyes, among others. “The whole album I wanted it to represent Sacramento,” he said. “One of my favorite movies is District 9. I feel like we as hip-hop here in Sac are kind of like that. In the movie the aliens are trapped there, and they feel like they have no way out. I kind of feel that way. But at the end one of them finally escapes out. I’m trying to be the one that escapes out.”
Task1ne has unbridled pride for the local scene, which filters into his philosophy on collaboration. He’s dieting, but his natural presence offers a well-sized frame to put the city on his shoulders. District 916 is a melting pot of crews that included working with Nicatyne and Yae of Fly High in Natomas. “Nobody really messes with them,” he said. “They do their own thing. There are a couple of groups they work with, but for the most part no one really does stuff with them. I wanted to. Got a beat from Nicatyne, which became the track ‘Villian’ featuring Yae–another Fly High member. Yae hit me up about doing a song about us being super villains. I said, ‘Here’s the beat. Start!’ That’s probably my favorite song on the album.”
The album is a balance of nerdcore references prepped for the battle circuit and everyman storytelling. The track “Bounce” breaks down the true story of Task1ne’s first groupie experience, in which he reacts like any normal dude with a state job and raps on the side might–mistake fleeting groupie love for the real thing. “I jumped to all these conclusions, thinking about a relationship, but she’s trying to leave. And I was just left like ‘Where are you going?’ So I tell my boys about it and they were like yeah, those are groupies.”
His daily routine of riding light rail inspired him to write “Back of the Bus,” a song pondering why young black men still sit in the back of the bus despite the privileges Rosa Parks made possible. “We’re a new generation. We can’t really relate to that. There’s no real answer to why I sit in the back. It’s just an automatic thing that I do.”
On “Introducing the Greatest,” Task1ne ponders what it takes to get a Sammie. And while the answer is power-bombing social networks with self-promotion, he needn’t wonder any longer–his name was included in the Best Emcee list of 2011. “I got it this year, thank God,” he said.
Implementing a no-days-off policy, he is planning his next project to be a free EP produced entirely by Adam Bomb, who produced three tracks on District 916. Task1ne maintains his secret identity beyond the common traits of superheroes. He holds his state job as a reminder to not give up his quest to be one of Sacramento’s greatest rappers. “I’m glad I work there because I see what I don’t want.”
In District 9 the alien that escapes takes the spaceship with the intentions of returning to those left behind and bettering their situation. Task1ne intends to do the same with a fall tour along the West Coast. In October he’ll play shows in Portland, Seattle, San Diego and Los Angeles. “I’m actually scared; I’m not going to lie,” he said. “Most rappers act cool about it, but naw, I’ve never done this before. I’ve never been to Seattle or Portland. A lot of people feel like it’s hard to find a way out, even though there are ways out. A lot of people feel trapped here and can’t branch out.
“I want to go up there and establish the Sacramento name, so the next time I come I can bring people with me. Like in the movie, the guy left and he’s going to come back to get his people.”
The District 916 CD release party will take place at The Blue Lamp in Sacramento on Sept. 15. Performing will be Digital Martyrs, JRas of SouLifted, Dregs1, Sleeprockers and of course Task1ne. For up to the minute info, follow Task1ne on Twitter @TASK1ne.
The femme-bot voice from A Tribe Called Quest’s classic album Midnight Marauders taught me that seven times out of 10, we listen to our music at night and that “marauder” means someone who loots. Tribe was marauding for listeners. Sacramento’s Nicatyne is out for the remaining 30 percent with MidDay Marauders.
At 21 years old, the Natomas producer-on-the-mic has produced two solo albums, a collaboration album with JoEL and two records with Illecism–both of whom are members of Fly High crew. In a sense, MidDay Marauders is Nicatyne’s sixth record, which is an impressive resume at such a young age. His flow is not as swagged-out as E-40’s braggadocio, but Nicatyne bears some style similarities that make MidDay Marauder feel like shark bites (as in the faux pas of “biting”) on the Bay Area. As Nicatyne states on “12s,” a dedication to 12-inch speakers, there’s only one reason his music has that bass for your trunk: “I knock because I got–12s.”
The album title will feel deceiving, given the young rap community’s recent insistence on reinterpreting the golden age classics (i.e. Fashawn’s Ode to Illmatic). MidDay Marauder is not one of those records.
Nicatyne, like many producers who rhyme, is better at one of his trades–the reason the term “producer-on-the-mic” was coined. Opener “One Morning” is abstract and minimalist with its plumber-banging-on-pipes percussion and dog bark samples, while the East Indian bounce of “Dhalsim” (featuring JoEl) has anthem potential with its “My cash stretch like Dhalsim” chorus chant. Nicatyne’s soft-spoken and nasally flow on “My Way” meshes well with his crawling production that rides a pixie-like vocal sample. Five songs deep into the record, Nicatyne is on a creative tear, but “The Man” disrupts the momentum to a point that the album never recovers its swagger.
Nicatyne lags into whatever rappers are calling the clubby-hyphy style songs these days. Slap? Blap? Someone call it. No matter the slang, I am not ready to accept the track “Deaf Star” and its Comic-Con-meets-night-club format.
MidDay Marauder closes strong with “It’s a Wrap,” which features Illecism, and the barbershop-slap of “Real Banter” is another minimalist banger built around a phrase that might replace “real talk.” The not quite chillwave, not quite R&B production on “Forever” is a close call between lapsing into the corny side of The Dream or the trendy side of Nite Jewel–either way I’ll be answering for that comparison in hell.
I’m still waiting for a Sacramento record that feels as though it was conceived strictly with a Sac-Proper state of mind. An identity crisis is spreading like a plague on the scene. It’s time for a sound to be identified as pure, instead of pandered toward the greater Northern California region.
