by Erik Abel
When I initially told The Kid Espi that I would write a monthly journal recapping my experiences in NYC, I forgot how much quicker life moves out here. I’ve only been in NYC for a month, but I could have never predicted how quickly things would take off. I don’t know how many journal entries I will actually write, because it’s starting to feel like I’m doing a lot of name dropping and I’m not really a bragadocious person by nature.
Following my last journal entry, I had a very busy hip-hop week, as I went to check out my dude Boogie Blind at a park jam, only to find the inventor of the scratch, Grand Wizard Theodore killing it. This was a serious throwback moment that made me feel like I jumped in a time machine and landed uptown in 1978. Breaks and B-boys were in full effect. The next evening, we took the train to BK to see Black Moon perform the entire Enta da Stage album with a live band. It was so crazy to see this show in Bucktown and really took me back. Dru Ha even rocked his verse. Sean P was his usual murdering, intimidating self. Connected with Mick Boogie. Saw MCA walking around. Had a few drinks. Urinated on a Brooklyn street corner. Good times.
The next day I got a chance to chill with Cool Nutz, who was in town tour managing Kreayshawn. After grabbing lunch, we ran into Moe Green, who was opening the show, and asked if I’d DJ for him. Seeing as though I’d never performed for a crowd that chanted “swag” at you the whole time you were on stage, I felt like this was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. After the show, I ended the night in an SUV with Cool Nutz, Kreayshawn, V Nasty, Roach Gigz, and the gang. Not quite how I envisioned my day to go when I woke up earlier that morning, but everyone was mad cool, and I didn’t hear white girls use any racial slurs, so that was an added bonus.
The following weekend was another busy one. A promoter that Rob Swift and I have been working with was throwing a bloggers BBQ with Combat Jack and Dallas Penn, featuring Danny Brown, Action Bronson, Maffew Ragazino, and more. And nothing says a Brooklyn hip-hop show like a dodgeball game in the back of the lot. This was a great networking event, as I got a chance to build with Statik Selektah, and Combat Jack made my day when he informed me that The Source was planning to review the latest Animal Farm album. This was also following a great story that came out about us and Portland Hip-Hop on AllHipHop the day before. Read it at http://www.AllHipHop.com/stories/news/archive/2011/08/19/22867468.aspx.
This past week, I had the honor of being on DJ Eclipse’s world famous Halftime radio show. This is a historical show and a cornerstone of NYC Hip-Hop Radio. I had a blast and got to bless the mic. Check out the ustream of the interview at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16857625. The segment begins with Eclipse cutting up our “Test of Time” track with Talib Kweli around 26:20 and our interview starts around 32 minutes into the video.
Last night was another great one. We did our first interview with the crew on Google Plus, which was also our first interview where the journalist was upside down. We even had a DJ Wels sighting. Look out for that one on Planet Ill. After the interview, I ran downtown to catch the tail end of a benefit at the MLB Fan Cave with my good friend Theresa from Tease Marketing. Big thanks to Theresa for introducing me to DMC from Run-DMC (kind of self-explanatory). It was incredible to see walk in and see the legend performing “It’s Tricky”, “King of Rock”, and much more for about 150 yuppies. The fan cave was also quite the experience. This is a tremendous space filled with a bar, barber shop, countless games and flat screen TVs, and much more. MLB chose two fans to live in the “cave” and watch all the baseball they could handle for the entire season.
I did forewarn you that I would be doing a lot of name dropping, so let me pick up those names and keep it moving. ‘Til next time.