OG Don Vito, Jimmy Green, and Other Royalty of the Hip-Hop Renaissance

    

        So, damn it, man. First of all, to put paid to my last column of some two years ago or more, Amazon finally caved and published Boogaloo. I have two readers, one of which I’m married to, so it’s sort of a pyrrhic victory. Anyway… I despise every libertarian and ancap that has never read it, which is all of them. 

The few of you who know me and actually read my stuff know I go back pretty far in the indie hip-hop underground (and the metal/hardcore one…). My involvement with hip-hop dates to literal decades before I had my little indie run around 2006-2008. 

At some point, I was done. I hit my first high mark with the amazing DJ Manticore. He can be blamed for anything I’ve done since 2000, honestly. Roman will always be my dog. Later on, I was blessed to work with Kid Charlamaign, who did about six tracks for me with all live instruments. Yet another dream come true. I’m not even sure what crazy period I went through to lose touch with him, honestly. I’ve had a few.

But that nerd rap scene dissipated. In fact, I tore it the fuck down because almost everyone involved was ultimately a shitbag. Y’all know who you are. No regrets. High-C owned your punk asses. 

I had done a few solo tracks, but I’m not super into producing, and I was past my prime. Or so I thought. A key figure from back in the days of the nerdcore-indie-hip-hop-revival scene was a low-key producer and sometimes MC named OG Don Vito. You can go back and check out his work all the way back to the early days of that scene. My man was right up front from the first. 

Unlike a lot of people, though, he kept his head down through the whole rise and fall, and beyond. His love of hip-hop and nerd rap never faded. In fact, he doubled down. His abilities grew to an insane degree, building on his early talents to become a legendary nerdcore producer. All the while remaining humble as hell and just an all-around great person. His skill set, ultimately, made him one of the greatest producers in hip-hop, period, to me. His style was one of utter clarity and boom, devoid of a moment of clutter. A Dre-level producer. 

He so loved nerdcore hip-hop that he eventually revived the Rhyme Torrents board that started the whole thing. But, as I said, the nerdcore artists were largely immature back when we started, and most never seemed to experience any real personal growth. Still, it was an immense gesture, and it even led to rounding out the Rhyme Torrents compilation discs to an even ten. And then friend and associate David Mercer actually released Rhyme Torrents 11. Just wow. It was wild to see.

About two years ago, Don Vito hit me up about doing a track. I’m not even sure why. But it worked for us. So, we did another one. That led to a full-blown concept album the likes of which nerdcore hip-hop had never seen. An utter tribute to old school boom bap, with decidedly super nerdy lyrics and concepts, coupled with an underlying writer theme. I am still very psyched at what we pulled off. It’s catchy, danceable, and has some of the best production in the world, nerdcore or not.

If all this is sounding like a eulogy, it kinda is...

In the midst of some 44 new tracks, OG Don Vito is missing in action. I fear the worst. He’s an utter man of mystery, and no one knows his real name, how to contact him other than via email, etc. I am wildly distraught, to say the least. I’ve put out every feeler I can via a number of methods. It’s about all I can do, at this point, and hope for the best. I’d rather he had just ghosted me than for anything bad to have happened to him, on any level.

All of which lead to me writing this column, which isn’t the one I had initially wanted to publish.

After several months of mourning, so to speak, I have elected to try and move forward with our final two projects together, the Collabs and Covers album, which was a somewhat experimental foray into some more rock-oriented hip-hop, and involved several collaborative efforts. What I fear will be our final effort, an album called Hipcrime, also involved a number of indie artists who deserve to have their work heard, possible tragedy aside.

In an effort to finish these terrific songs we both worked so hard on, I have drawn upon some important human resources available in the thriving online indie hip-hop community that centers primarily around Twitter. Which lead me to this column, because these people and the scene they’ve fostered deserve to be mentioned and documented for posterity.

First of all, I had to enlist the phenomenal Jimmy Green to lay down some serious scratching for a few tracks that simply have to see the light of day. One involves indie darling Backwood Sweetie, an artist that I have previously compared to Jean Grae most favorably. Except Sweetie has much more depth and range, at this point, and has never abandoned hip-hop... The two combined are unstoppable.

Scratch that (pun intended), two versions of that song! It is quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever been involved with. It’s utter worship of the old school that brought us all into existence. A call to arms for MCs to pick up the mic and wage war on the decaying system that has us all bound and fucked up. Trust me, when you hear it, you’ll understand perfectly.

He also laid down scratch parts for an insane rap cover that has me so jazzed, I can’t believe it. Then there’s the matter of an unpublished verse I have from a recently deceased MC who was one of the greatest underground rappers of all time… Stay tuned for that. All I can say is that if you need a producer of any sort, he should be at the top of your list. Impeccable results, fast turnaround, and terrific execution. He’s seriously one of the major players in this little hip-hop revival we have going on in both the UK and US. If you think you can’t afford a producer or scratch DJ, think again. He works on a sliding scale, you might be pleasantly surprised. I can’t endorse this man enough. As further proof, check out his untouchable mixtapes... And more mixtapes and remixes. This man wears the crown, heavy is his head.

I offer two examples of his work that are absolutely standout, top-notch, head and shoulders above anything the commercial hip-hop world has on offer: the remix he did of OG Don Vito’s title track Brute Force Attack, and the song that introduced me to Backwood and an array of killer underground MCs, Let It Burn. If these two songs don’t convince you that he’s an absolute prodigy, what can I say? You’re not hip-hop, and never will be. 

That leads me to another person who I have long since owed some written credit to. Well, a few more people. I’m going somewhere with this. But I have known Aerik Von for, oh, 30 years, more or less? Way, way back in the days of Unsung Heroes Records, one of his early bands/projects, Black Moon Rising did a split tape with my band Gortician, called Triple Penetration. A major underground classic you’ll likely never even be able to find.

Unlike myself, who eventually sold my drums after disbanding the group I was involved with, Aerik has kept on. And kept on. Much like Don Vito, he stayed in the game the whole damn time, never compromised, and became a terribly talented musician and producer. If he hasn’t released a hundred projects in his lifetime, I would be surprised. 

And forget that he’s dabbled in so many different aspects of metal alone, never rehashing his riffs or others’, which alone is an impossible feat. He’s broken out in a big way in synthwave, ambient soundtrack music, and even horrorcore. He’s due a career retrospective, but for now, I can only offer these words of praise, and a link. Not only is Aerik capable of anything you can imagine, production and performing-wise, he heads up a recording studio as a day job, and can literally handle your project from conceptualizing to final master. He’s the Steve Albini of metal, while not being anywhere near a dead asshole like Albini is.

While each of the above listed individuals are notable contributors to an overall indie music revival, there’s one pair that actually merit all of the above praise and then some.

Musically, they are known as Formaldehyde Slums and Lord Slums, of the group Loop City Slums. If I just went off and sang their praises as musicians, I could fill another page or two, easily. As lyricists, and lovers of hip-hop and indie music in general, they have some serious credentials and chops. I don’t know one head in 100 that can freestyle like these two can, playing off of each other like they’d rehearsed something many times beforehand, and it’s always either off the dome or ‘from the tuck’, as they say. Lyrically, they stomp a mudhole in any mainstream chump’s asses, and put to shame the majority of underground heads, as well. On top of that, they are straight-up fools at production and songwriting in general. I’ve been privy to a few new tracks, and various unreleased pieces, and these just provide the punctuation at the end of a long sentence declaring them top-tier hip-hop artists. 

But that’s to be expected. I only fuck with musical geniuses. Always have.

Where these cats also stand out from their peers is in their approach to promotion. In essence, they promote everyone but themselves. That may seem counterintuitive, but it’s the only sane way to do things. Having been through it several times now, I will tell you if you’re reading this: you will only go so far by promoting only yourself. I see so many people who operate that way, and I find it kind of sad. But it’s whateversies.

The Slums are a different breed altogether. Far wiser and more savvy, and they have a much greater love of hip-hop than most indie artists put together. This is all evident in their actions, which are primarily focused on a little show called Spin It Up…

Spin It Up is a live music review show that breaks new artists and tracks on a weekly basis. Each episode showcases several songs and videos that should be in heavy rotation nationally. I am committed to doing whatever I can to raise awareness regarding their show. Because, by supporting the Slums, I am also supporting everyone under the broad shadow of their umbrella. I cannot heap enough praise on ya boys. And KushQueen, their unsung secret weapon, and third wing of their triumvirate. I am in awe of what they’re doing, musically and otherwise. Their “best-of” show Blammerz has replaced MTV, Rap City, Pump It Up, Night Flight, and any old dope music show you can imagine. They have shamed the entire entertainment industry all on their own. 

That’s not to say there aren’t others making the same efforts along those lines. All in all, we seem to have a loose network of indie heads working furiously around the clock to elevate the artform back to its once lofty status. Sit in on a few Spin It Up sessions, and you’ll see the other major players. If you release music, you owe it to yourself to utilize their talents. If you’re a fan of good and great music, stop complaining that music is dead. It clearly isn’t, you’re just not paying attention in the right places. 

The list is long, and by no means inclusive. Clysmic, Doc, D$, Madi all do shows of one sort or another, constantly promoting indie artists. Standout MCs like Pu, Paulo, Patty Honcho and so many others are doing work that so easily surpasses the greatest efforts of mainstream MCs that have millions in backing, and the same goes for producers like WZRD and Insomniac, to name just two. If you are for real about hip-hop, you absolutely have to look into what’s going on in the true indie realm. But to get there, you need to go through the slums. Straight up. They are insanely active on Twitter, which also streams their weekly shows. 

Meh. I have a lot more to say, but the coffee is wearing off. I still have to add some links to this and publish, but I wanted to give these folks a quick shout-out, although I really do owe them all a whole lot more than this. Every little bit counts. Buy some indie art today if you can. Retweet, like, share, subscribe to their things. Sometimes a few kind words are all we get for pouring our lives into our passions.

If anyone knows anything about Don Vito, please get ahold of me. Meanwhile, I am going to plunge on ahead and complete our unfinished works as a tribute. 

Peace,
High-C