Two hip-hop heads are better than one. That’s how the old saying goes, right? Well, such is the case when two local MCs, Mahtie Bush and Kham Raw, joined forces recently for a hot new EP titled No Days Off. Bush and Raw are at their best on No Days Off; they’re both lyrical beasts having cut their teeth in the local scene for years. And by partnering with producers/beatmakers Flawless Trackz, DaSoulOLife and ADOTHEGOD, the new duo has made a super solid five-track debut. Of course, what’s the point of dropping a new release without throwing a party to celebrate? That’s just what Bush and Raw are doing! Head to Blue Lamp this Friday, Sept. 4 to see the two bring the house down along with special guests Kel C’z (of Alumni), Jauwon Pierre and DJ Lahn. The doors open at 10 p.m. for this 21-and-over hip-hop extravaganza that will only set you back $10 at the door. Blue Lamp is located at 1400 Alhambra Boulevard in downtown Sacramento. For more info on this show and future events, visit Bluelampsacramento.com. No Days Off will be available for download via iTunes on Sept. 4. -JC

Mahtie Bush – Child’s Play

Sacramento MC Mahtie Bush’s fourth studio album Child’s Play is a solid, slightly inconsistent collection that’s risky, poetic and, at times, mildly frustrating.

Bush is something of a Sacramento legend. And rightfully so. Renowned for his incredible work ethic and dedication to hip-hop culture, Bush has hustled his ass off, paving the way for a whole new generation of Northern California MCs. So, of course, from this seasoned MC, we expect many highlights and real gems (both of which this album provides), but on top of that we expect an anthem, a track that blows every other local song out of the water. In 2010, Bush gave us the boisterous “Backpackramento.” On Child’s Play, he gives us “Let Go,” an example of Bush at his finest, where a simple beat, hand claps and multi-layered punch lines are all that’s needed to create razor-sharp battle raps that go for the jugular with lines like, “Piss me off and get pissed on and flipped on and flipped off/Tell you and your GPS system to get lost, dog/I can’t lose/Shit on a Shih Tzu/Each line I write is trying to offend you.”

When Mahtie Bush is hyped up, he’s utterly unstoppable.

But Bush isn’t just a battle rapper. He’s also a conceptual thinker with the ability to construct songs that involve the listener on a more playful level, as he does on the track “On the House,” which allows him to stretch out, offering a quick, fun, lyrical glimpse into the distinctive Sacramento lifestyle over a quirky ‘70s-style beat. Almost midway through Child’s Play, the listener is treated to a wide array of styles from an MC who understands the diminished attention span of the average modern listener. But instead of dumbing down the verses, Bush simply varies the content, from battle raps to rugged flows to abstract works of art like “Blood Runs Cold,” where he slips into the mind of a poet, spitting cerebral bars like “Venom over chipped ice/This is what life tastes like/Snake bites from fake types/Serpents never play nice” that stab at the listener’s senses until they’re raw, as he singlehandedly embodies the unwieldy spirit of the entire Wu-Tang Clan in one track.

But Child’s Play isn’t without its flaws. The album lags in spots where Bush falls out of the pocket during some of his more expository moments, often letting his message overshadow sonic impact when he tries awkwardly to fit syllables into bars where they don’t belong (at his worst, Bush sounds like he might be having a stroke). For example, on “I Ain’t Believing That,” Bush’s rhymes are so oddly placed that they mangle the life out of the immaculately utilized Suzanne Vega and Fugees samples that the exquisite production has to offer.

Also, and this might be nitpicking, but when Bush tries too hard to get a point across, he dangerously flirts with sentimentality. For instance, a song about his son’s birth is fine, but, as is true with any writing, avoiding sappiness is the key to communication. So lyrics like “These Braxton Hicks is not what I had in mind/I just want you healthy/I know things will be fine/Eating healthy so your mom’s blood pressure is fine” just aren’t cutting it. The song also goes in and out of second person, so what could have been an interesting letter to his newborn son turns into a lesson on sentimentality and inconsistency.

Despite a couple middle-of-the-road and slightly forgettable rap tracks like “Here We Go Again” and “Pile of Bones,” the 11-track album offers way more positives than negatives. Bush manages to take risks, spill his guts and capture the plight of a gracefully aging MC who gently balances love of his city and the poetry that it inspires with his newfound role as a father and husband. Bush proves elegantly once again with Child’s Play that he’s a serious, versatile MC who is all grown up with tons more to say—and he’s not putting down the microphone any time soon.

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.

The Four Members of Sacramento Hip-Hop Group Alumni Challenge the Local Music Scene and Each Other

A square is a shape made of four equilateral sides. Perhaps that’s why the four equally talented hip-hoppers who make up Alumni decided to title their bombastic new album Square. M.I.Geezus, Prhyme Suspect, KelCz and Mahtie Bush were brought back together after a six-year hiatus by their unified desire to, in every aspect of their music, “Just fucking kill it.”  

The guys all went to Johnson High School, where none of them knew each other. It was outside of school, at events like KSFM’s rock the mic contest and at rap shows at the Colonial theater, where they eventually met.

“I remember Mahtie sucking so bad,” recalls M.I.Geezus of a 19-year-old B-boying Bush.

“Mahtie sucked so bad,” the group agreed in unison.

Bush, mind you, has come a long way from being that awkward B-boy trying to blossom into a rapper. He has been one of the most outspoken hip-hop artists to represent his peers; most notably for his locally infamous declaration that, “Sac Hates Hip-Hop.” In person he is calm and reserved, on the mic he’s a demanding lyrical weaver.

But Bush agrees, “OK, OK, I sucked for a very long time. I was the worst one in the damn group for a while.”

Prhyme Suspect was a classic knucklehead around the time Alumni met. He wasn’t going to do shit or listen to shit unless you could promise stage time.

“We were both just doing our own thing, but then we would get together in the neighborhood and mess around with beats,” said Geezus.

M.I.Geezus and Prhyme Suspect bonded over the Acid 2.0 music program; an extremely outdated synth and beat software that M.I. and Prhyme still hold onto for dear life to this day.

“I mastered Acid, so why the hell would I go and learn some new shit?” said Geezus.

The four eventually started performing with each other as the Rap Pack, an unfortunate name choice by a band member who will remain anonymous for his sake, and then officially and definitively as Alumni. The group had regular performances at Capitol Garage, Press Club, The Colonial and even overseas.

M.I.Geezus spent time in Tahiti recording with dubstep reggae artists who sought his confident energy and ability to resurrect hip-hop in the most refreshing sense. When he was asked to return, he said, “Well, there are four of us now, so I’ll come if I can bring my boys.” Four tickets were booked, and Alumni, flew out to Tahiti, where they almost immediately found major success making music for Orangina (Orangina is to Tahiti what Coca-Cola is to the United States).

“We were on the front of the paper and on the radio. It was crazy,” beamed Mahtie.

Other than knocking around the local music scene and in Tahiti, the guys have yet to tour. However, they dream of the day they can travel to France, where the hip-hop scene is exciting and full of opportunity.

Back home in Sacramento, Alumni opened up for DJ Eevolution, Grouch and Eli, Little Brother, Mistah Fab, Chino and their personal favorite, Nas.

“It’s hard to find a genuine reception from a crowd here. No one wants to throw their hands up and just dance,” said the group of performing in Sacramento. “Everyone is an artist. So you’re just an artist promoting to other artists who are probably sitting at your show saying, ‘I can do that shit better.’ If we can get a crowd jumping at a show here, we can do it anywhere.”

Since being unleashed in late October, Alumni’s new album, Square, has done just that.  It is bordering on experimental hip-hop, with everything from chest-pounding bombastics to gentle acoustics with collaborators such as Stevie Nader and Mic Jordan.

The track “Pretty/Dope” is an unglamorous look into the seemingly glamorous. It follows three females and their downward spiral into the party life—pretty girls with ugly lives. What’s most gripping about the song is not the song itself, but the music video that accompanies it. It offers an almost uncomfortable glimpse into the lives of women who seem to have it together, when really they are just good at masking their nasty habits and addictions; a combination that is bound for personal collapse. Director Alex Ramirez turned Red Rabbit bar into his cinematic canvas and battled the terrain of nightclub bathrooms and comfy living quarters to capture the intensely intimate video.

“I think that many people got caught up in the video much more than the overall song,” said Prhyme, “It was so intense and more like a short film. I think the intensity of it maybe even overshadowed the song.”

Alumni’s music videos have served as one of their most important and effective tools in getting their music exposed. So far, they already have three videos out with at least two more on the way.

They recruited the help of writer/director Alex Ramirez to take the reins of the creative direction of the Alumni videos.

M.I.Geezus hired the director, “Alex dove right into creating our videos from writing scripts to capturing the perfect lighting and feel. He just did an awesome job developing the concepts and helping visually capture the lyrics of our music. The videos have definitely been the key thing in getting us exposed to more people.”

The first release off the album, “(Take a Walk on) My Side,” featuring Stevie Nader, has thousands of views with more daily, proving itself the surprise hit of the album so far. The video shows Nader and Alumni taking a casual stroll down Detroit Boulevard in South Sacramento with burning tree stumps in the background and a setting sun.

As their record release party approaches and hopefully a packed schedule of live performances, the groups main duty is to never ever, under any circumstance, be mediocre.

“Someone I looked up to for years was performing live and he just blew it and completely sucked,” Bush recalls. “I don’t think there’s anything more disappointing than not getting blown away by someone performing.”

All four guys share this competitiveness with everyone else, especially one another, to be the very best and outshine the rest. What’s ironic is that Alumni may have a lot in common with the artists the rap group calls out for going to shows and having that “I can do it better” attitude.

“If someone does outshine us, we want to shake their hand and give them props. And mostly tell them congrats…until next time,” said M.I.Geezus.

So far, Alumni has been satisfied with the success of their album. Since the beginning of October, the group has had one success after another. From getting nominated for a Sammies award to local press and a healthy amount of Square downloads, Alumni is where they deserve to be. It almost seems like they work tirelessly in devoting their lives to a never-ending cycle of family and music. The group lives by this simple motto when it comes to their work, “Alumni does not fuck around. We want to be the best and we want to bring the best to all of our shows and nothing but the best. Again, Alumni: We do not fuck around.”

Saturday Nov. 23, 2013, Alumni will hold their CD release party at the Blue Lamp (1400 Alhambra Blvd., doors open at 9, cover $5). You can also download their album on iTunes or visit their site at Ihatealumni.com.

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.

15 Years, 11 Tracks, 11 Vocalists, 2 Bandmates: Tel Cairo

Words by Joe Atkins

For the last 15 years Cameron Others and 7evin have been working on their material, laying out beats, loops, archaic recordings of bedroom beatbox compilations and reworking that material into new orchestrations. In the last two years it’s all come together, and now, as Tel Cairo, Cameron and 7evin are set to release their debut full length, Voice of Reason. The album itself has been part of the long process of self-discovery for these two electronic musicians. Their sound, their relationship to composition, their knowledge of technique and technology have increased with each singular endeavor, and the result is a precision track listing of rattling low-end bass and twinkling high-end melodies.

And I’ve yet to mention what, for me, is the most impressive part of the album: its list of local MCs and vocalists who dominate the lyric and lead portions on the majority of the project. It’s a list of past, present and future Sacramento stars, artists whom have been working the scene for the last two decades trying to lift the city up with their own talents and careers. There are individual appearances from Aurora Love, “This Is Not”; Agustus thElephant, “Music Box”; and Mic Jordan, “Electro Knock.” On “Twelve Paths Toward Movement,” Sister Crayon frontwoman, Terra Lopez appears alongside hip-hop local TAIS; Mahtie Bush spits verse after verse on the track “Illicit” and the unknown, yet powerful, Stephanie Barber holds down the hook. Lest we find ourselves stuck in the lady sings the hook cliché, Paper Pistols new lead, Juliana Lydell sings the verses to the high pitched chorus of Caleb Heinze, from Ape Machine and Confederate Whiskey; and Task1ne, Voltron reference and all, flows over the verses of “Evening Push,” before local legend Jonah Matranga gives his signature falsetto to the hook. It’s a list that’s both diverse and impressive, and it makes for an album that highlights the many dynamic qualities of music in Sacramento.

Breaking from some highly competitive Wii, 7evin and Cameron sat down with Submerge, and we talked about Sacramento, influences, genre, processes of songwriting and recording, skateboarding, musicianship, Ira Skinner’s beard and the talented slew of lyricists they worked with on the album. In addition, Submerge exchanged a few emails with the lyricists, and, likewise, we share their thoughts on working with Tel Cairo.

What brought you to Sacramento? What are the best and worst parts about this city?
7evin: I moved here about eight years ago to work with Ira Skinner, a good longtime friend. Sacramento has an amazing group of musically talented individuals. We like what’s going on here. The cost of living is amazing; you don’t have to feel so pressured. The bad part is that there is almost no monetary value for art here.

Can you describe your songwriting process?
7evin: A lot of times we start off with analog, a guitar, drumset, bass. We get in there and start doing electronics. We don’t do samples. We do our own tones and MIDI controlling. There’s always one part, and we shoot it to the next person until he can’t work on it anymore, and he shoots it back. We’ll meet once a week and we’ll work on that song. We made 32 tracks for this album and 11 made the cut.

What sort of influence did Ira Skinner have, working with him as a producer?
Cameron: Ira let us figure out who we were. He took all the things we’d been layering for so long, and we’d forgotten what we started out with, and made them sound amazing. Some of these things were already done. We’d put so much into it. We needed to step away a little bit.
7evin: He is so chill in the studio. He let us fumble around to find a niche, and the second he hears something that’s good, he’s like “Wait, go back! Let’s do that.” We have the first word, bounce it off to someone in collaboration; we get the second word, and Ira comes in; and we get the final word.
Cameron: In between there was also a lot of growth and learning on our side, with the programs.

Of the two of you, who’s the biggest perfectionist?
7evin: We’re never happy with it.
Art is never done. We just move onto another song.
Cameron: We look at things a little differently. I’ll hear things differently that he might not hear. Technically, I think he’s the perfectionist, making sure everything is lined up. I’ve tried to watch, and I’ll fall asleep for a little bit.
7evin: We tag team it, recording. I’m 20 percent deaf in my left ear. I don’t hear high end, I hear mid-tone and bass. You can see that and feel that live. [Cameron will] come in and stick this melody here. He brings the beauty to my dirtiness. I’m a gutter-punk; this guy comes in, and he’s playing 12-string guitar. We’re very similar but we’re like the Alice in Wonderland, Looking Glass Mirror versions of each other.
Cameron: We get inspired at the same time from different things. We get a feeling. It could be DJ Shadow, it could be anything, a country song; our creative juices start, and we just sit down and see what comes out. When we work together we balance each other’s ideas.

I know that every collaborator brings a different set of skills to the studio, the songwriting process. Who impressed you most while recording?
7evin: Mic Jordan is one of the smartest people in the world. He’s brilliant. Just kicking it, he’d expand our minds in so many ways. When he came in, we worked an experimental song; it’s not a typical hip-hop track. He rose to the occasion.
He has like four different cadences, and it’s beautiful.
Cameron: Jordan, for sure. Caleb [Heinze], I’ve known that dude for a long time, and I knew he could sing. The way he nails that chorus is genius.
7evin: He has a range that no male should have. We weren’t sure what to do with that track “Nirvana,” but Juliana [Lydell] approached it off of his vocal, like the ghost of the guy she lost her virginity to.

What was it like to work with Jonah and everyone else? How’d you get them to collaborate on the album?
7evin: They were all our friends, except for Jonah, though Jonah’s now friends and family. Jonah’s someone we looked up to, someone we’d seen as kids growing up, going to shows at the Cattle Club. We had mutual friends so I hit him up.
Cam sent over “Evening Push” and he just ran with it. He was so kind and gentle of a person to work with two guys he didn’t know. We sent a lot of emails backwards and forwards. We haven’t got a chance to do it live with him as far as performance. But we’re doing that on April 4, everyone on the album is performing. It’s never going to happen again. It’s like one shot.
We definitely took a Gorillaz approach with this. Terra [Lopez and Cameron] are damn near best friends. I knew Stephanie [Barber] from helping her and her sister with their restaurant, and that girl can sing. We locked her and [Mahtie] Bush in my bedroom with us, and it was like a Seven Minutes in Heaven kind of thing, writing a song on an SM58 microphone.
Stephanie Barber [who is quietly present during most of the interview]: It was really creepy and productive.

One of the ways I’d describe your sound is electric, post-grunge, skateboard culture, all grown up. You happy with that?
Cameron: I’m cool with that. That’s what I do every day, [skate]. Skate videos have helped me listen to different things. In old Toy Machine videos, Ed Templeton uses a lot of Sonic Youth. I watched them hundreds of times. It made me want to experiment with my own guitar.

Would you say your music belongs as the soundtrack to the cinematic build up of a riot or the post-riot moment of optimistic melancholia, where a new world briefly exists but won’t last over time?
7evin: Afterwards, definitely. After everything’s been destroyed, and we’re rebuilding. There’s healing process in these songs. There’s hope. Your heart gets demolished, but you can grow and
move on.

Tel Cairo will celebrate the release of Voice of Reason at Midtown BarFly, 1119 21st Street in Sacramento, on April 4, 2013. This will be perhaps your only chance to see 7evin and Cameron Others share the stage with all of the vocalists who appeared on the album. For more info on the show, go to https://www.facebook.com/telcairo, or hop over to Midtown BarFly’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/MidtownBarFly.

4 Questions with Mic Jordan, Mahtie Bush, Task1ne and Juliana Lydell!

How was it to work with 7evin and Cameron on your track?
Mic Jordan: They played me a skeletal version of the song they wanted me on and set me loose with no real guidelines. I definitely had input into its final outcome, but I also felt like, “OK, everybody here knows what they’re doing, they trust me do my thing lyrically, so I trust them to do their thing sonically.”
Juliana Lydell: They’re really open-minded, supportive, and enthusiastic. Creating with them is a lot of fun.

Can you tell me about the process, e.g. did they have the song done and let you do vocals over it, or was it more of a collaborative process where you aided in the musical composition?
Task1ne: They trusted my expertise and let me just record the track like how I usually do it with no problems. It was a blast. I fell in love with the track instantly. I’m a fan of all types of music, so it was great to get to experiment on something different.
Mahtie Bush: They built the track right on the spot, and as they did that I was writing to the beat. It just happened; we were on the same page. The vibe was ill.

What makes Tel Cairo vital to the local scene?
Mic Jordan: The fact that they are bridging the (artificially separated) electronic, alternative and hip-hop communities. Ultimately, what sets Tel Cairo apart is the fact that their music defies easy categorization while somehow sounding authentic no matter what territory it’s venturing into.
Juliana Lydell: How excited they are, how much they believe in community, and what a team effort they make out of the act of creation. They think big. It’s contagious.

How long until Tel Cairo achieves world domination?
Mic Jordan: Who’s to say they haven’t already?
Task1ne: A better question is, which one is Pinky and which one is the Brain? Inquiring minds would like to know.

After many delays, Tribe of Levi release their first album, Follow My Lead

Tribe of Levi is a fixture in the Sacramento hip-hop scene as members of The People’s Revolution collective, but in the six years of being a crew the group never released a proper record. With the completion of Follow My Lead, the true schoolers are bringing local pride and world vision to the burgeoning scene.

The night before our interview, Chuuwee, Task1 and Poor of Tribe of Levi, among other local MCs, hit the KDVS airwaves for a session as part of the ATF: All Things Fresh’s last show of the semester. Tribe of Levi member, N.O.N. listened in while on the job saying, “It was a good display for the radio with good MCs.”

With N.O.N. on the job and Mic Jordan tending to “domestic things,” Poor represented for Tribe of Levi on the session. “While I was there, it hit me that this radio show was really special,” Poor said. “Not just because there were hella rappers there. But because this show was the only underground hip-hop you can hear on the radio. I’m not talking about Internet radio either. No diss to all the Internet radio cats out there, but I’m talking, in your car coming home on a late night radio. Feel me? On the FM dial! Plus, it is rare for me to be in a room with a lot of rappers that I consider really talented.”

The following morning, sitting down with Mic Jordan and N.O.N. of Tribe of Levi at the Javalounge, it was stated immediately, “Sacramento, per capita, has the best hip-hop scene in the country.” Without my provocation, Mic Jordan and N.O.N. came to the interview with a positive spin on the exhausting conversation of the local scene. Perhaps, it is time to stop worrying about what we don’t have and start appreciating the assets we do?

Like all talks with locals, it lapses into issuing complaints, issuing blame upon permits, shady promoters and community apathy. But as Tribe of Levi’s Follow My Lead record came together, the group saw past the common discrepancies to find inspiration and pride within the people who helped construct the album. As bleak as it can feel, an engineer working off the clock to perfect a mix, a local producer bouncing ideas and gathering resources and friends contributing guest verses and video treatments encouraged the group to see to it that Follow My Lead was released–even if they had to do it on their own.

The making of Follow My Lead began after a trip to Austin, Texas, for SxSW in 2011. The group returned home rejuvenated from the love it received in the southern oasis. An unfinished record entitled Levitation, was waiting for them at home, looming over their heads in limbo after issues arose with a producer who decided his beats were off the market, despite the songs already being laid down.

“We felt a little bogged down after spending five years trying to do Levitation,” Mic Jordan said. “It started to feel like an albatross.”

Mic Jordan opened the front apartment of his Midtown property to producer Lee Bannon. With Bannon a door knock away, the group began recording in his living room. The producer also linked up Tribe of Levi with New Jersey producer Akili Beats, who handled a majority of the production. “At first we were re-arranging beats,” Poor said. “Switching one out for the other, and so on. Until eventually, we decided to just write a whole other album. Lee Bannon played a huge role in helping the Tribe of Levi get a second wind.”

In August 2011, Tribe of Levi offered insight into the progress of Follow My Lead with a Jae Synth-directed video for “Things to Do” featuring fellow The People’s Revolution member Bru Lei. Shot at Mic Jordan’s home and around his 19th and G block, “Things to Do” opens with Poor riffing, “I’m on my Sacto shit today/I’m on my grown man shit too,” which is telling of the group’s mindset. Each rapper on the track sets up the closing stanza of his verse with, “I’m a grown ass man/I got things to do.”

On Follow My Lead, the group attacks each track with a no frills mentality that runs deeper than just on record. Mic Jordan had few qualms with stating that the record will be their push to take the group global, rather than fall victim to the small town thinking associated with the city. On “Things to Do” he raps, “Our community is crawling with future kings/But usually we stupidly ruin things.”

Photo by April Irene Fredrikson

“Historically and even presently we deal with this conundrum of being on the verge of being a big city and the verge of being a small back water,” he said. “There’s this strange confluence of really motivated, driven people and then you get to a certain level and you get shut down by retrograde, backwards, close-minded people who are plugged into a good ol’ boys network trying to preserve a status quo that’s actually kind of weak. It’s just rough.”

Much like Mayor Kevin Johnson’s vision, Mic Jordan spoke of Sacramento as a “should be” destination city, citing the climate, the capitol and its beauty as attractions. The deterrent to a blossoming music scene, to him, comes down to overlapping enforcement agencies and regulations on live music that make it so little can be done.

“International visitors can’t even get into the 21-and-over venues with their passports,” he said, which lends restriction on putting Sacramento hip-hop on the global scale.

“The idea for this album was to be able to do something that had national appeal,” he said. “If we are able to make the jump to being national or international, I hope I can put some sort of bridge or infrastructure in for the rest of the artists.”

Historically, the artists from the capitol have not done much for the city that raised them, and it continues with bands like Trash Talk repping Los Angeles harder than here or Death Grips hiding out but only playing three shows locally. Listening to the Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty record, a Mixmaster Mike phone call before “Three MCs and One DJ” features Mike saying he’s out here, but as N.O.N. notes, “It’s just a trip because you don’t see people like Mixmaster Mike out here doing events.”

“People don’t associate Sacramento’s biggest acts with Sacramento,” Mic Jordan added. “People don’t know that Blackalicious went to Kennedy. Other than [Brother] Lynch [Hung], he’s the only major act from here that was associated with it. But things are changing with Chuuwee, Death Grips and Bannon. Maybe the tide is turning finally. We’ve just got to figure out how to push it further.”

Follow My Lead is littered with hometown pride as the city’s name is invoked numerously throughout the record. It boils down to the people who helped make the album possible. Tribe of Levi is deeply rooted, recording tracks in Bannon’s kitchen and taking them to be mastered by PeteSpace at SoundCap Audio. “Everybody seemed to really believe in what we were doing and made it feel like they were participating in something worth while,” Mic Jordan said.

N.O.N. said he was recently searching Pandora Radio to see how many local MCs had stations, only to find artists like Mahtie Bush and Death Grips on the server. The initial push for Follow My Lead will begin on the grassroots level, as the group intends to handle its own public relations by writing letters and emails to the friends they’ve made internationally while traveling. The group will follow up the album with the delayed Levitation record, which is shaping up to be more of a mixtape, as well as solo projects from each member. N.O.N joked, “There’s a reason you have a mic in your house instead of a horse,” and it once again harkens to their grown men mindset.

“There’s not many people from Sac who are up on Pandora,” he said. “We’ve been keeping it real underground for the most part. We’ve performed so many songs that people can’t buy or listen to in their car. We’re putting our record on there.”

Tribe of Levi’s album release show for Follow My Lead will be Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at Harlow’s. Follow the band on Twitter (http://Twitter.com/tribeoflevi) for more updates and information. You can listen to some of the tracks from the album on the group’s Reverb Nation page (http://www.reverbnation.com/ and search “Tribe of Levi”).