“The thing about music is that there's no rules, you can do anything.” A-sharp
I have no idea how to start this, so I'm just going to start it. I've been through half a dozen failed shots at this story and I'm starting to think I left my brain in the 21 Eleven parking lot. My last few attempts were uselessly clever and collapsed under their own weight in the first 500 words, so I'm just going to say what I'm thinking.
I know a really nice guy who happens to be a really good rapper, and his name is A-sharp. You should listen to him. He's one of the founding members of 520 Entertainment, and he's just recently come out of hiding with an arsenal of fresh songs. He shows up with a bemused half smile and a CD full of beats. You don't know what to think of the good natured dude with the smartass glint in his eyes, until he picks up the microphone and opens his mouth.
“The thing about music is there's no rules, you can do anything,” A-sharp told me one night at my house. We were drinking ghetto blasters, listening to Deltron 3030, discussing the advantages of the Nintendo 64 over the PS2. A-sharp is very conscious of language. He's very careful with labels and names, he knows how easily music can get pigeonholed to death. From his beginnings as a blues guitarist to his current lyrical somersaults, it's been a long road to what he does now. A-sharp is to a point where his music is entertaining enough to make the booties shake, relevant enough to make the fists pump, and smart enough to make the brains grow.
Why did he disappear, though? Why haven't we heard from him in several years?
“ When we first started we performed a lot more. Me, Chris and Carl, it was just us three then. We performed at ECU talent shows and Dynasty and s*** like that. Then Chris moved to Atlanta. I kept performing. I performed all summer, back when Scores was still called Scores...Then, when Chris came back, we started recording. We didn't want to do shows because we didn't have a complete album to give away or sell, so it just seemed kind of pointless to be doing shows even though it wouldn't have been pointless, but we thought it would be at the time. We just got stuck in a rut of recording and recording and recording.”
It's tough to survive this scene without selling out or burning out. Downtown clubs change hands fast and often, but variety stagnates. The same tired cover acts shuffle members, jaded ex-rappers host atonal karaoke Tuesdays, and there's always the snide refusal of any booking agent who “knows how this town works, buddy, and can't help you out.”
Maybe A-sharp's years in hiding were to save his sanity. Getting off the ground is always tough, but the Greenville scene can be openly hostile to original music. This gets me down, but I hear only hope and optimism from A-sharp. He's been making connections at a lightning rate since his reappearance, specifically in the sensational Roanoke, Virginia, hip-hop scene (if you haven't heard, there's some serious music being made up there). His growing list of connections, coupled with a “divide and conquer” tour mentality make him (and the rest of the 520 crew) a force to be reckoned with.
“It's me, Chris, J-Burner, LC, my little brother (his rap name is Bones), and Haze. But yeah, it's six of us. That's why I was saying we could actually book up to three shows in the same day, because we could separate into two people groups. Right now Dan (Bones) is in Iraq, so it would be a little different, but we could still do two different shows,” A-sharp told me. “I want to focus on the east coast. We're doing s*** in NC, we're starting to spread into VA, I just want to do it like that. My friend went to Tennessee and she's going to try to get us some shows there.”
And what does 520 mean?
“Chris used to live at 520 Rustic Lane, in Belvoir, way out in the boondocks. That's where we used to write and record s***, and he didn't have any equipment like he does now. He just had a little $300 dollar Casio and the mixer was a grand, but that was about it. He made all the beats on a Casio. After a while he left, he moved to Atlanta...I had wanted to start an independent label while he was gone and I never thought of a name for it. When he came back he was like 'Why don't we just call it 520?'”
Behind A-sharp's, and all of 520's songs, are Chris's beats. Chris Knight and A-sharp started making music together in high school, right here in Greenville. 520 has come a long way. The Casio is long gone, replaced with proper beats that nod politely to modern influences while honoring their predecessors in the 90s. Chris raps too, taking the mic as often as any of the 520 crew.
Most impressive was the 520 set at the infamous/famous Turducken House's New Year's show. They went on early, not long after 10:00, to a packed house that knew all the words! I mean all the words, not just the choruses... Definitely check out the new stuff on his myspace (link at the end). I listened to it to keep my head straight while I wrote this, and it's pretty crucial. Especially “Flip It.” I can't get enough!
I'm going to totally switch gears now.
Rap is the new jazz. It's a purely American music style, and it evolves the same as jazz. The academics hijacked jazz, decrying any progress as sacrilege. Real music evolves on the streets and in dirty little house parties, in venues small enough to take risks. What do you think a speakeasy was?
Don't let the academics fool you, music is about evolution. Constant, relentless, often reckless evolution. Jazz was music by, and for, people with nothing to lose. Jazz was the cutting edge, but the academics got to it. Now it's wedding band music, true jazz was driven far underground. It's too edgy, it had to go semi-tonal to survive. Rock music speaks well, but it misses by miles on the improv front. When rockers go free form it's nightmarish... you end up with thirty minute Phish songs or worse. Jam bands are a blight on our fair planet.
Thus is jazz reborn in disguise. A real rapper, not just some Empty Vee loser flashing their pinkie ring, can freestyle like Dizzie Gillespie.
I've put it together, and I like it.
Myspace.com/adamsanturo is where A-sharp hangs his hat.
HawkSeason.Blogspot.com is a place you should never, never go.
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