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February 2004
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Chapter 2.
Thank God I'm not from Nazareth: Hometown love and the
Underground |
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Musiq
has a new album out that is finally getting some rotation. I liked the funky
one (forthenight), but it’ll probably be that super-layered slow jam (whoknows)
that stays in the charts. Either way – good stuff. ‘Bout time I remember, a few years ago, I heard a radio ad about a competition to go see Musiq up in Philly. No surprise there, but what got me was the announcer billed it as his first concert in Philadelphia. What? I’m thinking: “Isn’t he from Philly? That’s that Philly soul sound thing he got going on, right?” Musiq had already been to DC at least twice – maybe 3 times – so I just didn’t get it. I mentioned this to a good soon-to-be-a-star friend of mine Raheem (Yo. Jive where the heck is the album?) DeVaughn. He was already halfway into ‘the life,’ and told me sadly that sometimes it just goes that way. Sometimes hometown artists don’t get the love they deserve from home. Sometimes the haters run amuck – and have power. Dang. That’s scary. And then this past Sunday, in church, that’s what we read. You know that section in Luke that talks about Jesus going back home to preach, and he is just flooring the Pharisees and the people with all he knows. Then somebody starts whispering in the back: Ain’t that Mary’s son? Who he thank he is? It’s all down hill from there. Folks get jealous, drag him to the edge of town and try to throw Jesus off a cliff. That is some hard-core hating. One of the last things he said to those people, or maybe he was really just talking to his boys, was “No prophet is ever accepted in his own country.” Scarier words were never spoken. Clearly, I’m no prophet – I spend way too much time focusing on the hear and now. But the entire Bible is poem - God’s most extended metaphor in a couple thousand pages. So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that ‘prophet’ can be interpreted as anybody doing anything different, particularly righteous. That then include those that make good music, good politics, good writing – all things shamefully rare these days. You see where I’m going with this, right? Yea. Stepping out as JaHipster, I was petrified. In the beginning nobody was paying me to come and do my thing and I didn’t have money saved up somewhere, so I had to do my thing here at home or nowhere. If you have geared yourself up for a juicy tell-all about haters in the Baltimore scene, you’ll have to look somewhere else. This is my tribute to all the folks living under the city who didn’t let the Pharisees throw me over a cliff to my poetic doom. Everybody knows Baltimore has its issues. We rank top 10 in drugs, STD’s, violence and the list goes on. I am not from Baltimore, so course when I got here I was legitimately hating. There is a whole lot of foolishness going down in this town, and a lot blind eyes. But the underground and the music scene, or on their J.O.B. It’s not the infrastructure – a sistah still can’t get paid in this town – it’s the people. Honest, good, open, supportive. My underground CD collection is probably 100 strong at this point – and those same 100 people bought out the first run of The Legend of AFRODITE. I didn’t have a CD release concert – I had a party. I got a restaurant, got a little catering, brought a cake and invited all the folks who had stood by me for the first 5 years of the hustle. It was a lot of them, a lot of love, a lot of hugs – and they still bought the CD. And this is the way it works. It only works when you got backing. I’m not talking about corporate backing, Grand Marnier sponsorship, or RocaWear endorsements. I’m talking about the people. This is why Jill Scott worked. If me and 50 other people were the only folks that ever heard of her, she would not have been the first incredibly talented, beautifully conscious voice to be swept under a rug. Six months before her CD was even done, the friends, fam, and underground crew hit the streets and the internet. I knew I was supposed to by the album before I even knew who Jill Scott was – it was a friend of friend of Jill’s who told me, and bam! I was recruited. How long was Erykah Badu’s album out before everybody jumped the bandwagon? A year? Almost two. But those closest to her, and closest to them, etc etc etc kept her afloat until the world was ready. Raise your hand if you managed to see Erykah come through one of those small spots with like 50 people for 5 bucks? This is how we do it. And every time a record label comes onto the scene ignorant or disrespectful of this network, picks up an indie artist, snatches them away from their network, and dissociates them from the people, it just all falls apart. Another needed superstar becomes stardust. The label loses money, and the artist loses faith. I get a lot of love everywhere I go. I’m honest; I’m diva; I got a big fro and bigger smile. Folks just eat me up. But the truth of the matter is, I would not have had the nerve to introduce myself to the rest of the world if Baltimore didn’t decide that they loved me first. If and when I get picked up by a bigger label, that wants to push, promote and plan concerts, I will make sure that I still able to tap into my network or love, open mic, and just roll out onto stage for free whenever I feel like it – or whenever the people need me. Maybe it’s just me; maybe it’s just them. But, the truth is, it’s probably both of us together. This whole indie artist thing is definitely a “man against the machine” type deal. It’s not the kind of battle you want to get into without some warriors backing you up, be they other artists or just art lovers or family. Damn the PR campaign: there is no such thing as an army of one. I am so grateful. This is my thank you. One, jahipster
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