Interviews

[Via WBUR] READ FULL ARTICLE ON WBUR > One of the great things about reporting on a beat is that you become privy to the inner workings of a community. When the tape stops rolling, the conversation starts to wander. People will tell you things in casual conversation that they wouldn’t on the mic. I’ve been covering the Boston music scene for more than six years. Whenever I talked to hip-hop artists in the course of reporting, I heard a refrain: It was really hard to secure gigs. Sometimes venues would say outright that they didn’t book hip-hop at all. Meanwhile, rappers like Drake and Cardi B dominated the national charts, and in 2017 hip-hop finally outpaced rock as the most consumed genre in America. The time was ripe to dig deeper into the problem. In February of last year, after months of making calls, conducting interviews and going to shows, we published a lengthy report titled “Is Boston Hostile To Hip-Hop?” In it, artists and promoters described a local music ecosystem in which hip-hop was systemically marginalized. They reported instances of shows getting shut down for no clear reason and described aggressive pat-downs by bouncers. Most often they talked about being shut out of venues that refused to book hip-hop. Their voices joined a growing chorus of Boston artists accusing music scene gatekeepers of racism and calling for change. One of the people I interviewed, a promoter named Marquis Neal, implored me to check back in a year’s time. He was sure there would be an initial reaction by venues and talent buyers in response to the publicity, but he doubted that public call-outs would bring about lasting change. So here we are, one year later. I’ve been speaking to people with ties to the Boston hip-hop scene: artists, promoters, talent buyers, venue owners, a radio host. They paint a complicated picture of a local music industry that is improving but still deeply imperfect. Expressing both optimism and caution, they fear systemic change is still a long way off. “I think we’re starting to now get over the hurdle of venues,” says the rapper Brandie Blaze. “Is it still an issue? I would say yes. Is it the same issue? I would say no.” “Is it still an issue? I would say yes. Is it the same issue? I would say no.” Brandi Blaze A year ago, the Middle East Restaurant & Nightclub in Cambridge was the only venue to reliably book hip-hop. Since then we’ve seen it weather scrutiny after accusations of sexual assault against owner Joseph Sater surfaced online. (Sater ultimately retired from his managerial position at the club.) Though a number of artists and promoters, including the Boston rapper Oompa, pulled shows from the venue, the Middle East and its sister venue Sonia continue to function as a primary platform for many Boston hip-hop artists. Neal believes that speaking publicly helped. Last year, the promoter said he was having trouble finding a venue to throw the third installment of The Pull Up, a series spotlighting up-and-coming hip-hop artists in Boston. (Neal and I work in the same office — he’s the technical director for WBUR’s and NPR’s Only A Game.) Since then, the booking company Neal co-owns, N.E.O.N.E., has put on three hip-hop events in the area. “People were saying things like ‘racist,’ ” Neal says. “If you’re a venue, you don’t want to be associated with words like that.” Bridget Duggan, who works as the assistant booking manager at ONCE and the entertainment and marketing coordinator at the Milky Way, believes the complaints by local hip-hop artists registered with venue owners. “It definitely made a difference, I think,” she says. “Drawing awareness to those things is so important.” Still, hip-hop accounts for only a small portion of the music programmed at most venues in Boston. Some artists worry that the inclusion of hip-hop in those spaces amounts to tokenism. “There are some people who are doing it right and who really believe in hip-hop,” Oompa says. “But there’s a lot more people I’ve witnessed who don’t actually care about the livelihood of artists, but they know that they don’t want to be left out of the conversation about a culturally inclusive space or entity. … So they would put one or two people on the bill and you’ll never see [hip-hop] again for the rest of the year.” Artists and promoters caution that the work is far from over. “Having the opportunity to create the series Sketchbook [at Atwood’s Tavern] is definitely a privilege in a lot of ways,” Cliff Notez says. “But at the same time, what’ll make me really happy is if it’s just normalized. If it just becomes a thing that is just something that everybody can do, and everybody can sell out these small venues and have a hip-hop show, and think that they can do it in any of the venues in the city.” “…what’ll make me really happy is if it’s just normalized. If it just becomes a thing that is just something that everybody can do, and everybody can sell out these small venues and have a hip-hop show, and think that they can do it in any of the venues in the city.” Cliff Notez The conversations I had this time around covered a range of issues facing hip-hop and the local music scene. People talked at length about access to venues, the state of hip-hop in Boston, and their hopes for the future. They didn’t always agree. Here are excerpts from some of those conversations: Oompa Rapper There’s no one sound in Boston hip-hop, which is really cool. So here’s somebody like Billy Dean [Thomas], who has this alternative kind of sound, like a Gothic sound, to the hip-hop. And you might turn around and hear Moe Pope, who has this rock-metal-punk influence in his hip-hop. You might hear Latrell [James], who’s super melodic and lyrical. There’s this range of different talents that exist. I think I have the language to contextualize what I do in a way