The Art of ‘The Art of Lyrics’

You would think that The Bronx, long considered the birthplace of hip hop, would have a steady stream of shows to whet the appetites of those seeking hip hop entertainment, but you’d often be hard pressed to find a hip hop show anywhere in the borough these days. True there is the occasional show at the Paradise Theater, but other than that, any of the various underground showcases are still so underground, they haven’t yet shown up on the Birthplace Magazine radar.

That being said, we have found one such show providing the raw, underground hip hop that we’ve come to expect from performance venues throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Once a month, in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, Peasant Podium serves up The Art of Lyrics, a hip hop showcase exhibiting some of the best underground acts hip hop has to offer.

Started in 2009 and celebrating its three year anniversary in April, The Art of Lyrics focuses on bringing in artists that deliver on a more socially conscious platform. Prior shows have attracted artists such as Sadat X, Mr. Complex and Soul Khan to The Point Community Development Corporation (aka The Point CDC) location. Slowly, but surely, The Art of Lyrics is building a name for itself as a destination for those in the know to catch quality rap music acts in the borough that started it all.

Hosted by Rhinoceros Funk with DJ sets by DJ FredOnes and DJ Polarity, this, the 28th edition of The Art of Lyrics, featured a diverse mix of talent from across the city. Coole High, Homeboy Sandman and Ciph Diggy of The Sleepwalkas were among the notables in attendance who came through to offer support and to enjoy a night of first rate hip hop.

SEE MORE PHOTOS FROM THE ART OF LYRICS #28

The night kicked off with the Queens based group, Undeniable performing an energetic set featuring tracks off their release, Black Market Artists. Sinnagi and 07 even gave away copies of their CD to some lucky attendees.

Brooklyn’s amazing twosome, M-TRI & DJ Leecy T, rocked the stage with M-TRI dropping “The Grease” and “Suicidal Hype Shit”. DJ Leecy T dazzled on the wheels of steel behind M-TRI’s vocals, taking over the mic at one point and kicking an inspired freestyle with M-TRI backing her up on the turntables.

The always socially conscious Bronx collective, Welfare Poets, presented a dope set dropping knowledge for those that don’t know, in the form of tracks off their new album, Still on Welfare. Rayzer Sharp and fellow producer/emcee, The Legendary MIC dropped insightful rhymes and were backed by an amazing background singer, saxophonist and flutist.

The night included some acapellas by Bronx’s own, NeNe Ali, who commanded with her booming voice. This confident 14 year old’s backing music had been misplaced, but maybe for the better, because she clearly didn’t need it.

Brooklyn-by-way-of-Trenton school teacher, Narubi Selah graced the stage in a surprise appearance that displayed her mic skills and definitely made you start thinking about checking out her latest project, I Am Living Math.

In addition to the performances, organizations, For the People and Guerilla Republik were on hand to facilitate a food and clothing drive, as attendees had been asked to bring in donations.

In all, an entertainingly dope show. Even without advertising, The Art of Lyrics draws a decent size crowd which should increase in size as the weather gets better and word of mouth increases.

SEE PHOTOS FROM THE ART OF LYRICS #28

Before the show, we had the opportunity to speak with generous host and co-founder, Rhinoceros Funk, to break down The Art of Lyrics even further.

Who are you and what is Peasant Podium?

I go by Rhino. Real name is Noel Roman, Dominican family. Born and raised in Washington Heights. Peasant Podium was actually started by myself and Bens One from Washington Heights who’s a tattoo artist as well modern artist in all spectrums, whether it be casting, painting, tattooing. We started this in like 1999-2000. We wanted to step it up through our appreciation of hip hop because that’s really where we combined. We liked these kind of artists, so hip hop was like our sole background. We evolved into an appreciation of different artists, whether it be in actual art, video, film, performance based, so we was like, ‘let’s start something up where it can be always presenting the realism of poor people.’ It’s a poor man stepping up into the realm of speech. We both derive from poor families. His family based in South America… very poor. My family is very poor, based in the Dominican Republic. That’s where the whole Peasant Podium thing stems from.

So is that where the Art of Lyrics came from? An evolution of the Peasant Podium?

Before this, it was radio shows up in Albany, NY where I attended school. He’s still attending school, getting his Masters in art. We did radio shows, we did a couple of DJ battles and MC battles, but it was a very small community and they weren’t really receptive to it all. So when I came back down, I was like, let me try to do something down here. Luckily, we were able to get the Point through Danny Peralta who also represents every faction we ever spoke about in the view of the poor person’s plight in art. He represents that shit perfectly through photography, his organizing and all that.

The Art of Lyrics stems from me saying you know what, we going to have some shit called the Art of Lyrics. I’m getting tired of those fucking cocksuckers out there babbling nonsense on music. What they consider music; it’s a shortcut, a shortcut to music.

Looking at some of the artists on the bill, I noticed the Welfare Poets. I see them preaching a lot of knowledge. Stuff mainstream America doesn’t want to hear.

They don’t want to hear this shit. It’s turn on music. We can point back to music in the 70s where we still had music that was making the mainstream pop charts and Billboard that were songs of change, songs of social plight. Those were eliminated in the 80s. If you look at the Vietnam War, that was the last time you had independent lenses looking at what society was doing and what people were doing. That changed. You can go back to Reagan, if you want to and that structure, that Cabinet and how they changed everything where now it’s a minimal plane of understanding. It’s about minimalizing what you know.

The Art of Lyrics starts off 2012 with a new showcase on Friday, January 20 at The Point CDC. Be sure to check the website www.theartoflyrics.blogspot.com to get information on all of their showcase events.