On a cold winter night in 1998, myself, along with my cousin Larry and my childhood friend Roger (aka Jolly Roger. Yeah, the dude who makes those hats) went to Drama City, a local hood spot on the southside of Fairbanks that would later be known as Sunset Strip, to break dance to our favorite rap songs spun by local hip hop pioneer DJ, Don King Trixx as we did every weekend. I was too young to be in there at the time, but a young Tubby was quite the pop and lock dancer so they would let me in to bust my moves, and on this night, the DJ announced that local rap crew/label 50 Belo were in the house and that they were going to spit some raps over instrumentals. I had never seen local rappers before & even though I would toy around with the rhymes in the privacy of my home and at school with friends, I never thought of it as anything more than that.
50 Belo came out, a bunch of thug looking black dudes (this is coming from the perspective of a young white/asian kid at 16/17, mind you) along with a skinny ginger (the first white rapper I had seen since Vanilla Ice. This was pre-Marshall Mathers) and I was immediately fascinated. Then the beat came on, and it was Luniz "I Got 5 On It" which thinking back, I may have never heard before at the time, and I instantly fell in love with the instrumental. 50 Belo all took turns rapping over the beat, but it was the ginger, a young white boy who went by Redd, that stole the show and ultimately inspired me and gave me the realization, that this was something anyone can do, and that you didn't have to be black to do this rap shit, and from that day forward, I slowly stopped dancing, and started putting my energy into what came easier for me... poetry over beats. My life changed forever that cold winter night.
I've mentioned in the past, that before this was all said & done, I would do something with that instrumental that impacted my life in such a dramatic way. I initially had plans of rapping over the original instrumental but then I decided, to do something different, cuz let's be honest, rap nowadays is a bunch of copy cat muthafuckas doing the same cookie cutter shit and I wanted to leave my own stamp of originality to something so special and dear to my heart. I had my producer and musical collaborator, Raw Beatzz remake the instrumental, adding his own touch to the classic, and with the help of my crew, Starbuks & Fleetwood Malone, we took a classic, well known rap record, and made it our own... cuz THAT is what hip hop was originally about. Taking something old, and making it fresh, and making it OURS. That, ladies and gentlemen, is hip hop. I hope you enjoy it.
Find the inspiration in your life, and use that inspiration to find you.
Click the artwork to listen to
"Half On A Sack" feat. Starbuks & Fleetwood Malone, produced & mixed by Raw Beatzz
