For those unfamiliar, The Philharmonik is a pretty big name in music around Sacramento. His real name is Christian Gates and at 24-years-old, he’s already a multitalented producer, versatile instrumentalist and ambitious vocalist, and at the moment, his creativity knows no bounds. His music is a breath of fresh air in an overly saturated hip-hop mainstream where his deeply personal accounts articulate not only the injustice he sees around him, but also his optimism. Gates finds a way to make the nostalgic traits of each of his songs feel brand new.
On his 2016 rap project, Good People, the beats and content were reminiscent of an Outkast album, but with a Sacramento perspective. Now he’s back to take you on a soul-filled funk quest through his new self-titled album that will be released on March 1. Sonically, it includes R&B, electronic and even folk elements, but listeners may also notice that Gates wants to instill people with genuine hope and bravery.
Gates has been featured on stages at Concerts in the Park and GATHER, and has performed on Good Day Sac, Sofar Sacramento and headlined the James Cavern-hosted Basement Sessions. He has also been featured on websites like AfroPunk.
Gates is working ambitiously to branch out toward something bigger than music, under Sol Collective’s Sol Life record label, he wants to use his platform to help underprivileged communities and make Sacramento truly inclusive.
In recent news, Gates has been in the media for his boycott of Sacramento News and Review’s Sammies, the publication’s annual music awards show. Gates was nominated along with other Sac musicians like Hobo Johnson and Tel Cairo. The show was canceled this year after artists and nominees planned to boycott the event in response to SN&R’s profile of former Sacramento police officer John Tennis, who fatally shot a black man in 2016. Local musicians and activists plan to hold a series of Anti-Sammies events on March 14 and 15 at Blue Lamp, but Gates will not be performing. You can however catch him live at his album release show at Sol Collective on March 3.
Submerge had the opportunity to chat with Gates about his new album, society and his thoughts concerning his Sammies boycott.
We’re excited about the new album release, how long did it take you to get the project together?
I’ve been working on it since July 2016. What’s funny is that I’m always working on music, so by the time my first mixtape [Good People] came out I already had drafts for a couple records that were potentials for this album, but I wasn’t sure. The finished project took about a year-and-a half to two years.
Can you talk about the major differences between Good People and this new self-titled album?
Well Good People was [specifically] a rap album. I feel like that was where I was at [when I made it] … With this album [The Philharmonik] something just came over me where I was going back to my roots with artists I grew up with like Stevie Wonder. All the funk people were in my brain and I couldn’t get it out.
You have a playlist on Spotify titled “My Biggest Inspirations.” I heard Earth, Wind and Fire, and J.Cole among others. But of all the artists on your playlist, Stevie Wonder is on it the most. What is it about Stevie Wonder that resonates with you as a huge inspiration?
He’s just the greatest. His voice is perfect. And the fact that he doesn’t see at all makes it seem like he’s more in tune with the music. He’s just so captivating. He’s just like my biggest inspiration, hands down. All-time favorite.
You open the album with the mellow “Underdog.” But I’m a bit confused on whether the tune is about a single underdog or multiple characters. Can you explain?
It’s everybody. I think everyone has felt like an underdog in a certain way, shape or in life. For me this is how I’ve felt like an underdog. In school I used to get made fun of hella. Just all day getting picked on. I was that guy that would get the most picked on.
On “Pay Me,” your big message is the importance of not being taken advantage of. It seems like you’re saying, “Pay me, recognize me and give me the acknowledgment I deserve.” Is there more to the song?
It’s also my way of saying how much I hate capitalism. I was thinking about having to chase money all the time and the people at the top who have the whole world for them to devour. Is it too much to ask to make enough for me to live on? Like fuck you.
Do you have aspirations other than being a musician?
I want to make a change in this city. Not just like for the music aspect, but just for the community aspect. Because [Sol Collective] they’re doing so much, I want to also pour into that.
Back to the album, is “Momma’s House” [featuring Hobo Johnson] about getting out there on your own?
It’s hella depressing. It’s like at the end of the day, I was a privileged kid. I had a roof over my head and enough food to eat. The only thing was I couldn’t go out much and I had to watch my sister a lot. My mom was single and she had to do the work … The transition into adulthood is very hard. Everybody is getting into debt. The jobs aren’t equating. So on “Momma’s House,” I was like responding to all that by saying, “How the hell do I get out of this?”
“Good Day” is a less upbeat song yet a beautifully piano-driven representation of the challenges you’ve gone through emotionally. You struggle with depression correct?
Anxiety. Yeah, so I wrote that shit at like four in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. I was super fucking depressed. I just wanted to have a good day. Like over the years it felt like it was getting progressively worse especially after moving out. Isolation is almost unbearable.
On “Energy” you tap into your sultry, sexy, and romantic side. Where does that come from?
Incredibly, it came from a platonic place. It’s funny. I just wanted to talk more about just the connection and for me like there are people that inspire that song. Like experiences that I’ve had and I’ve been like wow the energy is really nice here. If you can sit at a bar at Motown Mondays and hold a conversation for the whole duration, that’s a good energy there.
What I get from “Let Freedom Ring” is your experience with racism and injustice from your daily life, or things you see happen to other people, but you sound really confident that there will be better days.
There will be. I wanted it to express how everybody feels ever since Donald Trump has been in office. The racists have definitely come out of the woodwork. So if they are going to come out of the woodwork, I’m definitely going to be more vocal about that shit. I don’t really care who it offends. Like if you have a platform where your voice can inspire people, it’s like your obligation—your responsibility to make sure that the people that are oppressed have some type of liberation in what they hear.
Were you the first to boycott the Sammies this year? Did you know other artists in the community were going to follow?
That shit’s been going on for a while. I’m not [the first]. I just had a big enough platform for people to notice [in the media]. People have been doing that shit [boycotting SN&R and The Sammies] for years … Honestly, a lot of people of color have been boycotting it and were voicing it and have been voicing it. But to be honest most of the white artists that have been doing it [boycotting the Sammies] wouldn’t have done it unless someone really came out the woodwork and really said something about it. And I do feel that way.
So you think it’s a “bandwagon” mentality for certain artists?
I definitely do. I definitely do think it’s a bandwagon. I mean there comes a place where I think racism is wrong, but there’s also a place where now that everybody is on board with this, they are on board, too, because of that. I didn’t give a fuck about any of it. I was like, yo, this is the right thing to do, and if you’re not going to do that it’s fine. But like Shane from Tel Cairo was very authentic [when he boycotted the Sammies]. Like he was ready, he was with me and there were other people that were with me. I felt some of the backlash from it to back down. But I’m not going to back down from it, and I do think we’re going into a good direction. But I think that shit is going to be temporary and I think they [SN&R] are going to revert back to their old ways. At this point I just feel like everything that they do, like the apologies in SN&R have been unacceptable because they haven’t really been apologies.
What do you want to see happen as a result of this boycott?
I want to see that black lives matter, and I want to see black lives inspired. I want to see more inclusivity of black and brown people within artist ranks and I want to see them get more money for it. I want them to be recognized. I want them to be seen. There’s just too much use of the word “diversity” without really having diversity, so that’s my message. You know like, yo, start putting your feelings to action.
Are you performing at the Anti-Sammies?
I’ll be at SXSW during that time. The Sammies got canceled. I guess that’s a start in the right direction. But I’m skeptical and think things will go back to the way they were.
Make sure to check out The Philharmonik’s self-titled album, which will be released on March 1 on Spotify, SoundCloud, Tidal and Apple Music. You can celebrate its release at Sol Collective (2574 21st St., Sacramento), on March 3. Tickets are $12, and Jmsey and Sunmonks will also perform. You can also catch The Philharmonik live on March 9 for an intimate show at Gold Standard Sounds recording studio, or on April 13 at Harlow’s (2708 J St., Sacramento) when he opens for Bilal. For more info, go to Facebook.com/thephilharmonik.
**This interview first appeared in print on pages 22 – 23 of issue #260 (Feb. 26 – Mar. 12, 2018)**
Standing in front of a blank wall bigger than a basketball court with 800 cans of spray paint and a surgical mask at the ready sounds like a scary adrenaline rush. But it’s a small piece of heaven for Michael McDaniel—an opportunity for the heart, mind and spirit to relax and create.
After living a childhood with uncontrolled psychosis that led to drug abuse and long stints in psychiatric hospitals, McDaniel’s spirituality helped him find a path to reality, and it included painting and helping others with their mental illness to be independent and creative.
McDaniel, 48, has been painting in Sacramento for nearly a decade. He has also been a case manager since 2005 at Transforming Lives, Cultivating Success (TLCS), a nonprofit that works to empower people who have mental illnesses and to prevent homelessness.
At TLCS, McDaniel has facilitated an art class for several years and has worked with more than 80 clients who struggle every day with psychotic symptoms, using art to provide them with a source of comfort and a way to express themselves.
“Art is in everything, and the greatest work of art is the human being,” McDaniel says. “I want to be able to share my artwork and use it to create community.”
McDaniel says he pictures these murals alongside community gardens, where students can learn about the importance of their environment in multiple ways.
Founder and producer of Wide Open Walls, David Sobon, has a similar goal. For Sobon, an international mural festival in Sacramento is the perfect way to build community, provide for underfunded art education, create landmarks, spur the economic engine and, ultimately, provide free, beautiful, art to all people.
Wide Open Walls (WOW), formerly the Sacramento Mural Festival, will feature McDaniel and 39 other artists—local, national and international—to transforming walls and neighborhoods across the city. He and 2 Hermano, of Sol Collective, are the two individual artists chosen through WOW’s commitment to supporting local nonprofits at the event.
Transformation is a key theme for this year’s WOW festival, which runs Aug. 10–20, 2017. Sobon has taken over last year’s inaugural Sacramento Mural Festival, run by Friends of the Arts Commission, and turned it into the largest event of its kind. No other mural festival has had 40 artists—many of them world renowned—create 40 murals in less than two weeks in one city, Sobon says.
The aim is to build upon the rich art culture of Sacramento that already permeates city walls, Sobon adds.
“I love going to museums—the Crocker is one of the best museums on the West Coast—and I love going to all the galleries around town, but I want to bring art to everyone, and bring art to everyone for free,” Sobon says about his vision. “Bringing art to everyone is not a new concept at all, I just want to bring it to the next level.”
For him, the next level means continuously adding new murals to the list of nearly 700 that already exist in the Sacramento area (check out Nathaniel Miller’s interactive mural map, to which Miller will be adding each WOW piece: Journalistnate.com/sacramento-mural-map/) and putting Sacramento on the international stage.
WOW seems a perfect companion to the Crocker’s current special exhibit, The First 10 Years of Hi-Fructose, which showcases many contemporary artists who are, or started out as, street artists.
Excitement is already building for artists like Lora Zombie—frequently featured in Hi-Fructose magazine—a self-taught, self-described grunge artist, who has gained a massive online following across the world with her pop culture and cartoon-inspired watercolor paintings and wall murals.
Through her art, she shares her mind and colors, which are influenced by her path, Zombie writes from her home in Russia.
“Sharing inspiration with as many people as possible,” Zombie says, is part of the importance of art accessibility. Inspiration—from American cartoons, comic books and the Gorillaz—is what led the down her to becoming an artist, she notes in her explanation of her latest project, a clothing line called HEROTIME.
Wanting to join Zombie Flesh Eaters, the studio behind the Gorillaz, she changed her name and flew to London at 16.
“I looked up the address for the Zombie Flesh Eaters studio and rang the doorbell with my portfolio in hand, and a lady opened the door, looked at me and unsure of what to make of me, promptly closed it again,” Zombie writes. “I learned an important lesson at the time about the discrepancy between the desired and the actual, and the need to have a flexible mind that is ready for introspection and change.”
For the next decade, Zombie chose to create her own work. The emergence of street art from those like Banksy, and online forums that followed, catapulted her to star status.
Her mural on R Street for WOW, she says, will be about a feeling of gratitude to the universe.
“I warned R Street, Lora just did a West Coast tour … she had thousands and thousands of people waiting in line to get her autograph, and meet her, and take selfies with her,” Sobon says. “They’re going to have a lot of people on R Street coming to watch her paint. Or coming to watch Molly Devlin and S.V. Williams paint on the side of the Foundry. And Micah Crandall-Bear is going to be painting behind the SMUD station next to Beatnik [Studios].”
Sobon continues, “When our artists are painting in the same venue, the same event, the same festival, we get the attention of not just sponsors worldwide but organizations like Visit Sacramento—I mean, Visit Sacramento is our presenting sponsor and I could not be more thrilled,” Sobon says, eyes wide, punctuating each word for emphasis. “When we have the agency that is in charge of marketing Sacramento globally, thinking that this is the biggest event in town, that it could add more beauty, more long-term benefits than anything else we’re doing, it gets me pretty excited.”
Sobon notes that the murals will go up not just on the grid, but also in outlying areas like the River District, where an increasing number of Sacramentans experiencing homelessness are struggling to find help.
“Art is for everyone, and they deserve beautiful art like everyone else,” Sobon notes.
Power Inn Alliance, the business alliance for the vast commercial/industrial area around Power Inn Road, is also a partner, wanting to bring beauty among the rows of warehouses. Particular attention has been given to Sacramento’s Promise Zone, which encompasses 22 square miles of the economically hardest-hit neighborhoods in the city—from Del Paso Heights in the North Area to The Avenues in the South County. Sobon says the art is a catalyst to spur more activity, tourism and interest beyond downtown and Midtown.
He adds that WOW will only get bigger, and he’s already received calls from Citrus Heights, Roseville and other communities.
“Our supporters include the California Endowment, SMUD and Bank of America, but the support of private citizens has been important,” he says. “It has to be art for everyone and everyone has to be able to apply, and it has to include all cultures, be inclusive and expanded to other neighborhoods.”
Sponsors assist in paying for materials and to get the artists to Sacramento, and businesses and landlords pay for the opportunity to have a mural, with additional revenue going toward art education.
“I’d love to inspire art education and teach kids how to do this art form correctly,” Sobon says. “Teach them the rules and do murals in their schools in their neighborhoods.”
The purpose is similar to why murals started going up in Sacramento in the first place, 40 years ago.
The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF), a Sacramento-based art collective that started with the name Rebel Chicano Art Front in 1970, led much of the public art scene in Sacramento to promote political awareness, educate and feed youth, and foster support for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.
The impact of founders Jose Montoya and Esteban Villa is still widely felt in the region, and continues to be integral to the Chicano Art Movement in the western United States.
That tradition of accessibility and social responsibility is what Sobon hopes to continue. WOW will include opportunities for the public to engage with the artists at gallery openings, public mural tours, artists’ receptions and panels, First Friday and Second Saturday celebrations, the Wall Ball—an art-themed fundraiser for arts education—and while the artists are actually creating their large-scale works.
Sobon and curator Warren Brand gathered artists by both invitation and with a public call for artists. The final 40 will create works diverse as Sacramento and each bring a different perspective to mural art and participation in some of the most ignored alleys and streets.
McDaniel’s mural is set to go up at 917 Seventh St. in Improv Alley, just one of many alleys downtown sprinkled with art but that leave much to be desired.
His mural of the American River will show the greater universe above and below it.
“Light and water and matter create this incredible reality we get to experience,” McDaniel says of his concept, as he shares childhood memories of growing up with the American River in his backyard, and of fishing, hiking and biking. His paintings often include a bearded iris in memory of his mother, who suggested he start painting as a way to help him through his mental illness.
He includes the flower for a second reason.
“One day I was riding my bike with my camera and I stopped outside Sacramento State where I first saw this bearded iris, and started crying, ‘Dang Lord, I’m almost 30 years old and I’ve never seen a flower like this?’ It humbled me and reminded me that life can be beautiful but can also be like a vapor.”
The thought matches the reality of street art—that it is, ultimately, temporary.
Sobon hopes that the murals created as part of WOW gain the same respect and recognition of those historic pieces around town that have been preserved over decades.
But even he’s not worried about losing this form of art.
“Last year, we only did one mural in Jazz Alley as part of the festival, but five more have gone up since then because artists got permission from landlords to do more,” he says. “A lot of artists are just looking for canvases to paint on. And festivals like this bring legitimacy to street art.”
You’ll have several opportunities before, during and after Wide Open Walls to experience the art of more than 40 muralists descending on Sacramento during the month of August. For a chance to purchase art and swag, visit Beatnik Studios Aug. 4–25, 2017, for the WOW gallery show, which will have more than 50 pieces on display for sale. The reception is Aug. 4. To check out the full list of WOW events, learn more about the artists, and donate to the cause, visit Wow916.com and follow WOW on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
**This article first appeared in print on pages 20 – 21 of issue #245 (July 31 – Aug. 14, 2017)**
Sacramento native and photographer Amanda Lopez has teamed up with Los Angeles stylist and jewelry designer Tanya Melendez on a powerful new exhibit called Adornment. The exhibit pairs Lopez’s love of portraiture, Melendez’s eye for jewelry and design, and the duo’s shared love of cultural celebration and empowerment. Adornment received rave reviews from LA Weekly and Remezcla after its recent opening in Los Angeles, and now the beautiful series of portraits will make its way to Sacramento’s Sol Collective for an opening reception on July 15, 2017. “Women of color are underrepresented in all facets of life, business and art,” Lopez explains in a press release submitted to Submerge. “We felt that it was important to create a space that honors women of color and reminds them of their power, divinity and beauty.” Adornment will be on display at Sol Collective, located at 2574 21st St., from July 15–August 7. The opening reception on July 15 is free, open to the public and will take place from 6–10 p.m. Learn more at Facebook.com/solcollective or Solcollective.org.
**This write-up first appeared in print on page 12 of issue #243 (July 3 – 17, 2017)**
One of the most important arts organizations in the community, Sol Collective, is in the midst of a massive campaign to raise funds to purchase the building they’re currently renting, which recently went up for sale. When word recently got out that they might have to move, Sol’s many supporters immediately started taking action, and to date they’ve raised a pretty significant amount toward their down payment, but they still need your help! If you’d like to put some money toward Sol Collective and support their many amazing programs, you might want to hit up The SOLution Benefit Concert on Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016. It’s just $10 to get in, with all proceeds going toward Sol Collective’s efforts to purchase their building, and you’ll be treated to performances from some of the area’s most exciting musical groups like DLRN, James Cavern, Soosh*e, The Philharmonik, Dre-T and Privileges. The show is all ages and kicks off at 8 p.m. Sol is located at 2574 21st St. Learn more at Solcollective.org.
Election day will have passed, and it’s a sure bet that we will all have something to rant, rave or even howl about at the next installment of Crocker Art Museum’s monthly ArtMix series. On Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, join local poets, MCs, DJs, activists and artists at ArtMix: Howl, from 5–9 p.m. The Sol Collective crew will be in the house for art-making that’ll get us all thinking, and be sure to check out Activism Articulated’s Altars for Justice, a community-based art project that hopes to bring awareness to social justice issues, especially police brutality. Get down to some beats and rhymes from DJ Novela, RASAR, Paul Willis and CatchaKoala, and listen up as spoken word artists like Coon the Poet, members of the ZFG crew and HK Poet do their thing. If you’ve got something to say, you’re in luck: there will be an open mic at ArtMix: Howl as well, so be sure to bring your notepad with all your deep thoughts and sign up for your five-minute slot. “ArtMix: Howl is designed to help us move onward and upward,” states Crocker’s website. “It is all about having a voice, so let’s howl together.” ArtMix is always free for Crocker members and just $10 for non-members. 21 and over only. Food and drinks will be available for purchase as well. Visit Crockerartmuseum.org or call (916) 808-1182 for more information.
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but in the case of Astronautica’s new album Gemini, the name is exactly perfect. The album contains the ideal grooves for strapping on headphones and blasting through the stars, or—as the artist behind Astronautica, Edrina Martinez, recommends—listening to while “driving down the coast, chilling on a beach or in the desert somewhere drinking a beer or smoking a joint. Just going somewhere where you can take a break without any deadlines or anything and really chill.”
The bouncing single “Palm Springs” is bathed in a deep golden haze of washed-out dance parties by the pool, as the synths and the soft, love-struck vocals of Martinez slowly drift by. The drums are punchy and the resulting mix sounds like what would happen if Nosaj Thing and Emancipator conceived a musical love child while stoned in a planetarium.
Martinez is a Los Angeles native who discovered the notorious club Low End Theory at the ripe age of 18 and instantly fell in love. “Yeah I would go into the bathroom with these big black Xs on my hands and try to wash them off,” Martinez said. “But just being there was so different, like the sound was really big and you were packed in with all these people. You feel like you’re one with the music and the artist just because of the proximity.”
It wasn’t long before Martinez was learning Ableton mixing software through YouTube tutorials, using her guitar to make samples and coming up with something different from anything else coming out of the L.A. beat scene at the time. She put some songs up on her Soundcloud and was approached by Daddy Kev, founder of Low End Theory, to make an album. Then she was touring the United States, getting tweets from Tokimonsta and playing Coachella.
“Coachella was frickin’ crazy because I’ve been going since I was 14, so it was such a trip to be on the other side of everything,” she said, before going into her experiences from the second weekend at the festival’s Turn Down tent. “That was where everyone came down from whatever they were on; people laying down on blankets and massaging each other. I was like, man, I kinda want to be on that side again.”
However, it’ll likely be a long time before Martinez will be able to retire to the cuddle puddles considering the amount of jams she’s been able to produce in the few short years since posting her early demos on Soundcloud. She’s collaborated with and remixed a variety of different artists through the music collectives springing up around Low End Theory. Collaborating with JMSN for “How It’s Gonna Be,” and Bridge for “Velvet Morning,” Martinez showed that she could ground her music and make some slinky R&B bangers when she wanted to. Martinez grew up surrounded by hip-hop and purportedly the first song she ever sang was Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice,” so it makes sense that there’s a little hint of pride when she talks about the collaborations.
But for Gemini, her second album, Martinez decided to go in a different direction. For about half of the album, she’s sampling her own voice, and writing her own lyrics instead of using other people’s samples.
“I think having that challenge and pushing myself made the album more exciting to me,” she said. “I wanted to make myself more vulnerable and put myself out there a little more.”
And there is a certain amount of intimacy in Gemini which is a bit harder to find in electronic music. Martinez describes the album as a love story; falling in love, falling out of love and falling in love again, like cyclical phases of the moon or the tides in the sea.
The hooks are breathy declarations like, “I’m not afraid / To fall in love again,” and “I still think of you / Do you still think of me?” They’re small, simple hooks, but they’re smooth. Yet for as ethereal and shimmering the songs can be, they’re still grounded in a setting that is very near and dear to Martinez: Palm Springs.
“It’s just a place where I can go away for the weekend and get away from everything and just hang out with the people I like and love the most.” Martinez said. “I love being in the desert, the poolside or whatever, the warmth of the sun. Palm Springs for me is just a very romantic place.”
For Martinez, Palm Springs is tied up with memories of leaving L.A. with her mother, or high school friends, or a boyfriend, and it was this universal feeling of love that she was trying to get across to the listener. Sadly, some fans have taken this sentiment too far, and like Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHES, she’s had to shoot down some marriage proposals.
“For the most part I think fans are really respectful, but I remember that’s the question I’d be getting constantly on Tumblr,” she said. “Marriage proposals, yeah, those are real, they happen a lot. Then this other time I was on stage, and out of nowhere someone was like ‘Show us your tit!’ Like, just one?… I don’t know, I just try to focus on the music.”
Martinez went on to say that while she mostly just laughs it off now, she’ll get back to me after her upcoming tour if the cat-calling really begins to drive her crazy. But in the meantime, she’s getting back to the music. Martinez is currently designing an all-live show with new visuals and live instrumentation.
“I’m trying to play 100 percent all original music while still playing with the MIDI controller and the guitar. Navigating through those waters is exciting but definitely a journey. In my DJ set, I’m there to make people dance and whatnot, but for the live set it’s more just the vibes.”
Astronautica will be embarking on a tour of the west coast with fellow Alpha Pup Records bands and serving up those tasty vibes on June 19 at Sol Collective in Sacramento. Past that, Martinez is looking forward to touring Europe and presumably conquering the world after that.
“I wanna play anywhere, I think it’d be cool to play in Paris or something,” she said. “Maybe like a larger venue at night with a big DJ set, but then I also would want to play at the Philippines, or somewhere really tropical, and do like an outdoorsy day time thing as a live set with my guitar. I don’t know, can I get back to you on that?”
With the amount of buzz circulating around Astronautica, it seems like the sky is only the first stop for this young rocketeer.
Check out Astronautica as part of the Alpha Pup Summer Tour 2016 on June 19, 2016, at Sol Collective, located at 2574 21st St in Sacramento. This all-ages show kicks off at 9 p.m. and also features Gypsymamba, Elusive, Toy Light, Mr. Dibiase, Tel Cairo, Khmestri and more to be announced. Find more info online at Facebook.com/SolCollective.
To the average passerby, the intersection of C and 14th streets in Sacramento might have come off as exceptionally eerie in the final few hours of Oct. 30, 2015, right before Halloween officially got underway.
Surrounded by a small, abandoned industrial park on one side with a spread of Victorian-style homes in the Mansion Flats neighborhood of downtown sitting adjacent to the other, not a single soul could be spotted in any direction as the night crept on toward the nine o’clock hour.
About 20 yards down the block, however, a barbed wire-lined gate had been pulled wide open, leaving a clear entrance to the loading dock area of one the nearby properties.
{Mural in Guadalajara, Mexico}
There were people inside, and they sure seemed busy enough to make up for the near-dead silence just outside the barricade-like wall separating them from the road.
As it turns out, two different teams had been hard at work at 1425 C Street (formerly part of Hangar Studios): one setting up a stage in the lower-level courtyard, another building a set inside the east side warehouse.
Among the dozen or so indoor crew members was local artist Shaun Burner, bustling back and forth between a jumbo-sized horse’s head and an even bigger headless horseman towering behind it—both of which were still being worked on.
Burner had been approached by TBD Fest founders Michael Hargis and Clay Nutting about a month earlier to help create the artwork for their upcoming Halloween show, slated to feature DJs Slow Magic and Com Truise.
Just one day away from its doors opening to the public, Burner appeared surprisingly at ease during a cigarette break, saying he was confident the project would be finished in time.
“I feel like we’re on pace,” Burner said, adding that he was also up against another deadline designing signage for the new B-Side bar opening on S Street. “We got the meat of the structure up; now it’s just kind of detail work. I think we’re at a good place.”
Burner said he felt he had slowly taken on the role of artistic director and project manager over past few weeks, delegating tasks to volunteers that had often fluctuated between four and ten on any given day.
{Art for TBD Fest’s Halloween show}
While he said he and fellow artist Franceska Gamez had mostly built, chicken-wired, papier-mached and painted a lot of the main set pieces for the Sleepy Hollow-themed backdrop, others had helped bring more subtle elements of the concept to life—like the giant tree up against the north wall of the warehouse, which had gnarled branches extending throughout the ceiling.
With time running out, Burner said he was grateful for whatever help he could get.
“It’s good having other creative weirdos to kind of help make this happen,” he explained.
Growing up in Rancho Cordova and then traveling the world to spread art with different collectives through much of the ‘00s, Burner said he considered himself to be one of those creative weirdos as well—albeit one that had been working professionally almost his entire life.
After moving downtown nearly 15 years ago and being introduced to mural painting by his friend Mike Rodriguez, Burner gradually became involved in many community-based projects within the area, including one where he helped complete a mural for the Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center.
{Collaboration with Franceska Gamez}
Before long, he had joined Sacramento’s Sol Collective and was eventually invited to attend an arts tour of Puerto Rico with the group.
“We were traveling with about 30 people—musicians, poets, artists,” Burner said. “We were doing workshops; we were painting murals for the community. And that’s where I met some members of Trust Your Struggle,” an art collective based out of New York and the Bay Area.
Burner says he decided to try his hand at living amongst his East Coast collective counterparts upon returning from the Puerto Rico trip in 2005. During his three-year New York stint, he ended up working extensively in film production and set design, and even embarked on another mural campaign—only this time around the United States.
The domestic tour was dubbed “Trust Your Hustle,” Burner said, as he and fellow painters and activists traveled to Atlanta, Austin, San Francisco and New Orleans, among other cities, to help communities build “from the ground up” with artwork and, at times, actual infrastructure if needed.
{Trust Your Struggle collaboration}
It wasn’t until he and a couple other members extended the tour to Los Angeles that Burner found himself evaluating his financial situation.
“We were super broke,” Burner said about his arrival in L.A. “At one point, we did this mural where we like traded for food … We were like trading for cheeseburgers.”
Burner stayed with family in Southern California for about two years before he started seeing more mural work coming his way regularly. After entrenching himself in the film industry in New York for so long, Burner found himself circling back to his first true love in painting.
According to his website, Burner was involved in seven separate murals in the Los Angeles area between 2008 and 2009, on top of the other 18 murals he participated in during the same time period.
His site doesn’t show any work of past 2010, which was around the time he opted to move back home to Sacramento after more than five years of being away.
{WAL installation}
“My nieces are growing up, and I want them to know me,” Burner said, explaining one of the reasons for his move to the Capital City. “I didn’t want to be away and just be the uncle who came in every now and then. So just come and be around my fam, and then build some rad shit in this city.”
Since his return, Burner says paid commissions have sometimes been hit or miss, but that he tries to not let that discourage him.
“I mean, it’s feast or famine. You know what I mean?” Burner says. “It’s kind of a funny thing—it fluctuates. Sometimes I will have all these jobs come at once, and I have to take them on and just get them done, and I’ll be working like crazy. And then other times it thins out a little bit.”
Either way, though, money hasn’t ever stopped him from continuing to paint in Sacramento, whether he’s commissioned or not. And when the rainy season hits, he adds, and the conditions aren’t the best for mural work, “That’s a good time to leave town and go to another place where it is.”
Aside from his constant flow of mural paintings, Burner also co-manages an art gallery called 1810, located inside the Warehouse Artist Lofts off of 12th and R streets.
Open only during the first Fridays and second Saturdays of each month, Burner says he’d like to start running more regular hours once he can find someone to run the establishment on a consistent basis. The gallery, he says, has a lot of potential to showcase local talent and to possibly bring a different flavor to the art scene in Sacramento that’s possibly not getting exposure at the moment.
{“Wake Up!”}
“Even with that thing,” Burner points out, “selling art can be a hard gig, you know? So it’s not like we’re making money off of that. But it’s more about just doing it and just trying to bring cool stuff to Sacramento.”
In the end, that’s really all Burner really wants: bringing more art to wherever it’s needed.
“It’s such an amazing way to communicate with people and just brighten up a city and bring some culture to a city and make you feel proud about where you’re at,” he says.
“I’ve made amazing connections with people through art. I’ve painted with people that don’t even speak the same language as me. And we’ve hung out and we’ve been able to connect and make beautiful work together.”
While he says he would eventually like to see more consistent commissions so he could one day support a family just on painting alone, Burner acknowledged that he works best under pressure—time and again finding himself able to rise to the occasion when things aren’t so easy.
“I feel like you can get really comfortable sometimes and not make things happen,” Burner says. “But when push comes to shove or you’re under the gun, you can make amazing things happen.”
That’s why he enjoys work like the Halloween set that he finally finished over the next 24 hours.
“I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, we got work to do. But we’re gonna get this shit done, because we need to.’ There’s no time to second guess it.”
There are two types of people in this world: those who talk about making change in their communities, and those that actually make change happen. The good folks at Sol Collective are the latter. They are doers. They are go-getters. They not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. For those who aren’t familiar, Sol Collective is a local nonprofit center focused on art, education and community empowerment. At their 3,200-square-foot space located at 2574 21st Street in Sacramento, they host a plethora of art exhibits, concerts, workshops, apprentice/mentorship programs and community forums. Sol Collective is a hotbed for all things creative and their contributions to Sacramento’s music and art scenes truly cannot be measured, they can only be observed, appreciated and hopefully emulated.
On Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015, Sol Collective is celebrating 10 years of arts, culture and activism at “Sol X,” an all-day event featuring community art labs with special guest speakers, the collective’s annual Sol Activist Awards and an exclusive “Global Local” dance party with live music and DJs. “It was started as a love effort for underserved youth in the city,” Sol stated in a press release sent to Submerge. “Over the past decade Sol Collective has worked to create, cultivate, and support innovative arts and cultural programming throughout Sacramento and beyond.”
{World Hood}
Sol X gets going at 3 p.m. with two hours of community learning labs including block printing, silkscreening, permaculture and curanderismo (indigenous natural healing practices). Following that will be “Media, Culture, and Activism” a film screening/discussion with FistUp Film Festival’s Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi and acclaimed recording artist Mandeep Sethi. Afterwards, at about 7:15 p.m., local community organizers will be recognized at the Activist Awards, followed by a dance party starting at 9 p.m. featuring headliners A Tribe Called Red (all the way from Canada!) as well as Sol Collective founders’ group World Hood, Sol Life artists Luke Tailor and Native Children, Mandeep Sethi, The Love Defenders and Sacramento’s own Tel Cairo. What a lineup!
There will only be 100 tickets sold to this exclusive engagement, so we suggest hitting up Eventbrite.com and searching for “Sol X” immediately if you want to join this special event. There are multiple ticketing options: For just $25 you get entrance to the learning labs, Activist Awards, dessert reception and dance party. For $50 you get an exclusive Sol Anniversary T-Shirt and art print, as well as entrance to all the other stuff, and for $100 you’ll get a super dope exclusive Sol Anniversary sweatshirt, two art prints and entrance to all the other fun stuff all day/night long.
For more information on all of the great things they do for the community, please visit Solcollective.org, Facebook.com/ArtCultureActivism, or call them at (916) 585-3136. Congratulations on 10 years, Sol fam! You make Sacramento more colorful and creative, and for that we at Submerge thank you.
There is little escape from the sun at 3rd and Adeline in Oakland. The industrial district is flooded with bodies sweating through T-shirts and bucket hats designed with variations of the three-eyed smiley face symbol of local rap legends Hieroglyphics. The crew is celebrating its fourth annual Hiero Day and among the invitees to perform is Sacramento’s Dibia$e. It seems as though a combination of the heat and the liberal weed smoking reduces crowd participation to a steady head nod that ripples to the signature bounce of Dibia$e’s production.
Although other producers will grace the stage with the same gear at Hiero Day, none manipulate the SP-404 like Dibia$e. His production is glitchy with hints of chiptune and 8-bit, at other times soulful samples finessed with a slice that’s both Dilla-esque and entirely a style all his own.
On this afternoon in Oakland the hundreds gathered don’t move much, but they also don’t leave. Break dancers accompany Dibia$e on stage, stepping to his music and interpreting the rhythms with their moves. It’s almost as though he’s got the remote control over their movement. We are high and in awe. He’s a veteran as much as headliners like Aceyalone and Tha Alkaholiks, but he’s also remained a low-key legend that’s been present at every significant scene in Los Angeles and makes no qualms about his quiet life in Sacramento.
Days prior to Hiero Day, I met Dibia$e at Sol Collective south of Broadway in Sacramento. He was there to record a session with a local artist, but the person had bailed last minute. As we were sitting in a side room tracking the timeline of his career, he said he liked Sol Collective because it reminds him of Good Life Café in Leimert Park, Los Angeles. In the ‘90s, Good Life, a raw food restaurant by day and the rawest open mic by night, was the event for independent rappers in Leimert Park. At Good Life, if you didn’t meet their standards, attendees shouted “pass the mic,” forcing you out of contention until next week. It was in competition at Good Life, later called Project Blowed, that he first earned his stripes as a rapper and later as a producer in beat battles. Dibia$e said once he got behind the sampler to make beats, it became his MO because his friends were always in need of them, and, from winning the battles, he got his first experience paying rent off rap music.
“It was stressful because I had to win like a prizefighter,” he said. “I was the Kimbo Slice on beats.”
From the early 2000s until 2007, Dibia$e was notorious in the California beat battle circuit. His competition at Project Blowed was against burgeoning artists like Nosaj Thing and TOKiMONSTA that prepared him for greater West Coast scene. When he wasn’t competing, he met with L.A. producers like Flying Lotus, Ras G, Kutmah and Exile at a beat workshop called Sketchbook at The Room in Hollywood—a precursor to the now-legendary Low End Theory at the Airliner. In those days, he’d take Greyhound buses to the Bay Area and drive to San Diego for battles. Venues like The Knitting Factory L.A. hosted Beat Society and the Red Bull Big Tune Beat Battles. He would even travel to the Inland Empire for battles in Riverside.
“Even when I’d go to watch, people would come up to me nervous to find out if I was entering,” he said.
He was making do from battling, but concurrently, the admiration for beat music was no longer exclusive to the small producer community. Sketchbook was conceived as a workshop to sit around a boombox and trade beat tapes like baseball cards. Low End Theory was a social event where people went to be scene and photographed; and where musicians like Erykah Badu, Thom Yorke, and Prince came to DJ secret sets. As Low End Theory took off and an arena for beatmakers outside the battle circuit became a reality, his associates from Sketchbook thought he should think big picture.
“A lot of cats used to tell me to leave the battles alone and start doing the shows,” he said. “But I felt like the battling was my market. It got me traveling. I rode that wave for a little bit. I didn’t win every single one. I’d drive far and lose battles. Lose in the finals after going four extra rounds and just miss it. Out $500 after getting that close. That’s rent money.”
In 2010 he was still competing in battles, winning the Los Angeles Big Tune event but falling short in the finals in Chicago, but that big picture was also coming into focus. He released his first solo album, Machines Hate Me, on L.A.-label Alpha Pup, run by Low End Theory mastermind Daddy Kev. That year was also when Dibia$e uprooted from L.A. to close the distance on a relationship with a woman from Sacramento. The move paid dividends. She’s now his booking agent, business partner with their label 10 Thirty Records, wife and mother of his newborn daughter.
While Sacramento did not offer the scene support he enjoyed in L.A., he expressed no regrets in his current status. His fatherhood role, which includes a stepson, structures his time spent making music. As a young producer, he would hole up in a friend’s studio and work in a weekend flurry. Now his lab time in a studio built in the backyard is reduced to a few hours during his daughter’s afternoon nap, the baby monitor at his side by the sampler.
“I can’t squander the day away,” he said. “I’ll play with her and stimulate her brain for a little bit. Sometimes she’ll sit in the lab with me, and I’ll play her some music. Put her to sleep. She sleeps for two hours. I knock some beats out a little bit. I’ll hear her on the monitor. She’s waking up and I’ll feed her again.”
To his stepson and the 6th grade hoop dreamers of California Youth Basketball League in Natomas, he’s Coach Dibia$e. He’s been a youth coach and participated in community volunteer work since his L.A. days and while he only played a year in high school, basketball was a passion growing up in Watts. He said he would play “sunup to sundown” on the public courts growing up. As Coach Dibia$e, his team struggled but competed admirably enough in the first season to maintain his position on the bench.
“I wasn’t going to do it again, but most of the kids requested me to come back,” he said. “They saw the improvement. The last four games we were close to winning all of them [let’s out a big sigh] … but didn’t. That’s that stress part I didn’t miss. But seeing those kids having fun makes it rewarding.”
He admits Sacramento is conducive to creative productivity in its lack of distractions. It shows in his output of three albums (Sound Palace, Looney Goons and Schematiks) in four years as well as several smaller Bandcamp releases. Here he’s lesser known, but his connections to Low End Theory continue to yield opportunities like shows in Australia and Japan. “The time flies,” he said. “It’s only felt like a few months, but it’s going on five years.”
On the horizon is his set at TBD Fest on Friday, Sept. 18, 2015, and more projects with greater ambition, still thinking big picture.
“I’m planning to work with more rappers this year,” he said of his plans for the future, one of which includes aspirations for a project with Detroit rapper and Stones Throw artist Guilty Simpson. Locally he’s got work completed with Chuuwee, Rufio, Wise Child and Tel Cairo.
Still, when he graces that stage, the heart of his life’s work is at his fingertips. The SP-404 is designed to be portable, weighing only 2 pounds, 14 ounces, and he carries his in a shoebox decorated with stickers of the labels who have released his records. His appreciation for the life he leads is in those details on that shoebox. During his Hiero Day set he remixes Souls of Mischief, while sporting a red T-shirt that reads “‘93 Til.” Only days prior he expressed his decades of admiration for the Hiero crew dating back to his drawing days, and that being on that stage was a bucket list item.
“Going back to my junior high days I used to draw cartoon characters of like Hieroglyphics and Souls of Mischief, all them cats,” he said. “That’s the homies and shit now … if they would have told me I would be kicking it with some of these cats in ‘93, I’d have been like yeah right.”
Dibia$e is a must-see artist gracing the stage at this year’s TBD Fest, which will be held in the Bridge District in West Sacramento. For more tickets and lineup info, go to Tbdfest.com. Dibia$e will perform on the opening day of the three-day festival, Sept. 18, 2015.
It seems cliche these days to point out that a hip-hop artist is “so much more than just a rapper,” but in the case of Sacramento’s Andreas “Dre-T” Tillman Jr., it’s absolutely true. Still in his early twenties, Dre-T has become a staple in the local spoken-word scene and is a “poet-mentor” to many inner-city youth in his work with Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, a literacy organization out of UC Davis. He is the founder and host of a spoken-word-based open mic night called Penny 4 Your Thoughts at Sol Collective every Sunday from 7 – 9 p.m. When he was just 20, Dre-T received a $20,000 grant from the California Endowment to foster leadership skills and increased engagement for youth in South Sacramento. As a rapper/performer, Dre-T has shared the stage with international artists like Los Rakas, Ise Lyfe and even Wu-Tang’s GZA. Dre-T’s new EP, Sacramentality, shows an artist wise well beyond his years. The deep, mature tones of his voice combined with thought-provoking rhymes and effortless beat production (yes he even makes all his own beats) make this one of the best locally produced hip-hop releases of the year. On the EP’s opening track, “Change,” Dre-T soulfully sings over the slow, saxophone-ridden beat, You don’t wanna see change / But you want me to be change, before speeding up and quickly rapping, You don’t wanna see me prove to the people that the system you have is sad, sad, sad / The education that you deliver is all bad, bad, bad / And this ain’t me just spittin’ some super lyrical truth, truth, truth / This is me listenin’ to the spirit of the youth. A couple tracks later on “No Religion,” Dre-T loosens up a bit, playfully spitting, Day and night I’m on that raw shit / Fuck out my face with all that garbage / Yes I’m sick but I don’t get nauseous / I ain’t even shit on ‘em I just farted. The EP is full of quotable lines; some silly, some nasty, some so real that you’ll find yourself rewinding and listening over and over again. Dre-T will celebrate the release of Sacramentality on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, with a performance at Sol Collective (2574 21st Street) that will also feature special guests. The show gets going at 8 p.m., is just $5 and all ages are welcome. Dre-T will also be performing at Blue Lamp on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, with a variety of other local hip-hop artists. Head to Soundcloud.com/dreis9eleven to hear the EP and be on the lookout for Dre-T to be dropping a new single every month starting in September.
