Another one of the housemates, Brad B, co-owns Resistance Printshop in Tempe with fellow Drunken Immortals MC Mic Cause, and they print fliers and posters for all kinds of Co-op happenings (like all those posters covering the office walls). It's a smart business to be in, because aside from word of mouth, e-mail, and the miracle of MySpace, their print pieces are a mainstay of the Co-op's grassroots advertising.
When I admire a huge, colorful painting hanging in one room of the hip-hop hostel, Foundation tells me that Brad painted it. Who knew he was a painter, too? "Yeah, we all wear a lot of different hats," he says.
Mark Poutenis
Are you experienced?
What's in a name? The Co-op's ubiquitous logo.
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Exactly.
And then there's Doug Quick, who now wears a ball cap instead of his once-trademark long red dreads, but he still doesn't look the part of band manager/tour booker/amateur videographer. Sneakers and baggy tee shirts aside, though, Quick still carries a briefcase and laptop so he can keep track of the band's commitments and work on projects for Universatile Music, the almost four-year-old indie hip-hop label and concert promotion business co-founded by Michael Horowitz and Pickster. UM is a big reason you see so many indie hip-hop artists coming to town, like Sage Francis or Cage.
Quick hooks up his computer in the living room to show me some footage for a live DVD documenting Drunken's spring European tour with Awol One and Existereo, and from the looks of the fist-pumping crowds in places like Germany and Sweden, Arizona hip-hop has global appeal.
It's about time, don't you think?
To be sure, it helps that these guys are name-dropping our state in plenty of their rhymes. The in-the-works album by Drunken Immortals, tentatively titled Hot Concrete, has eight tracks recorded so far, with lots of hard, deeply funky beats. I notice references to the desert and the Valley hip-hop scene, and smile to myself when I hear an Arizona-centric anthem with the chorus, "Praying for rain."
We need more of this local flavor. Because, ironically, it's going to take a strong Southwest identity for our home-grown hip-hop to get noticed anywhere else. I'm psyched to see Blow-Up Co-op put all those multitaskers to work, pushing the scene beyond the traditional four elements of hip-hop -- MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti -- and into a full-blown urban community with no boundaries. Better yet, so many of the Co-op folks are trying to take things to the national level.
Some of them might be tempted to hightail it to L.A., but I think they realize how good they have it here. Even their well-known visitors remind them of that. Now that the Co-op is starting to live up to its name, I just hope Phoenix can come along for the ride.
