#p-tek

I used to have this beautiful dream of being a hip-hop producer, and for a couple years I made a lot of beats for this guy P-Tek, among others.

I wrote about P-Tek & Egon's DPS | LP2 for Ovrld's Top Austin Albums of 2013, as well as Growl's Gallery EP. I'm including the full blurbs below, since they got cut pretty short on the published list and I like the full blurbs I wrote. P-Tek + Egon DPS | LP2

P-Tek + EGON described their album DPS|LP2 as “a hip-hop variety hour,” meaning it was as much about the wide array of guests they featured on it as their own presence, an open audio letter of sorts that celebrated Austin's hip-hop scene while being frank about its deficits. P-Tek more than held his own alongside vets like Tee Double-- who brings his sly, cool presence to a particularly frenetic Egon beat on “Rubber”-- while also going out of his way to showcase the skills of peers like Secret Levels, who joins P-Tek in some lyrical daredevilry on “Wet My Whistle.” Though P-Tek wasn't afraid to display his geekier side-- there are two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles referencing tracks, after all-- there was an undercurrent of on-target aggressiveness that elevated the game past any nerd rap stereotype wary listeners might have had on the ready. That might be clearest on the Doc Brown guesting track “Ninja Rap,” which has the Space Camp Death Squad emcee cheekily declaring “the only good white rapper is a dead white rapper,” before adding the exceptions of Vanilla Ice and P-Tek. It's a joke, obviously, but DPS | LP2 ably proved that P-Tek and Egon were more than willing to work overtime to prove themselves and the scene they're a part of. Growl Gallery EP

I wrote about P-Tek & Egon's DPS | LP2 for Ovrld's Top Austin Albums of 2013, as well as Growl's Gallery EP. I'm including the full blurbs below, since they got cut pretty short on the published list and I like the full blurbs I wrote. P-Tek + Egon DPS | LP2

P-Tek + EGON described their album DPS|LP2 as “a hip-hop variety hour,” meaning it was as much about the wide array of guests they featured on it as their own presence, an open audio letter of sorts that celebrated Austin's hip-hop scene while being frank about its deficits. P-Tek more than held his own alongside vets like Tee Double-- who brings his sly, cool presence to a particularly frenetic Egon beat on “Rubber”-- while also going out of his way to showcase the skills of peers like Secret Levels, who joins P-Tek in some lyrical daredevilry on “Wet My Whistle.” Though P-Tek wasn't afraid to display his geekier side-- there are two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles referencing tracks, after all-- there was an undercurrent of on-target aggressiveness that elevated the game past any nerd rap stereotype wary listeners might have had on the ready. That might be clearest on the Doc Brown guesting track “Ninja Rap,” which has the Space Camp Death Squad emcee cheekily declaring “the only good white rapper is a dead white rapper,” before adding the exceptions of Vanilla Ice and P-Tek. It's a joke, obviously, but DPS | LP2 ably proved that P-Tek and Egon were more than willing to work overtime to prove themselves and the scene they're a part of. Growl Gallery EP

After an impromptu set at #PUSHERMANIA's Free Week at the Frontier Bar last week, Houston's Fat Tony returns to Austin for a show of his own at Hotel Vegas this Friday. Tearing through the South and making a name for himself on both coasts, Fat Tony and Tom Cruz released their album Double Dragon last year. Check out the track "Denim Guinness Boys":

Support Comes from local astro-rappers Space Camp Death Squad. One of my favorites, they create and perform with a respectful, self-aware irreverence that speaks directly to my blunt sense of humor. Writing them off as ironic would be too lazy even for me. Hot off the press is the track "Chelsea Grin":

Further support comes from local hellions Ditch Witch (the band). Hail Satan.

<a href="http://ditchwitchtheband.bandcamp.com/track/satans-wave-of-fire" data-mce-href="http://ditchwitchtheband.bandcamp.com/track/satans-wave-of-fire">Satan's Wave of Fire by DITCH WITCH</a>

Lately I've been feeling a strong pull towards a punk approach to hip-hop -- not necessarily aesthetically, but definitely value-wise.  The DIY, no-money, morally enraged "Fuck the Man" ethos applies super-well to the problems I have with rappers who focus their time quantifying wealth and sex towards those seeking escapism instead of using the artform to examine, well, pretty much anything with humanity or a soul.  It's what Jeru The Damaja once called "Tha Bullshit."

And I'm not speaking towards super political rap either, because while I DO love that subgenre when it's done well, I don't really feel like joining the ranks of indie emcees spitting esoteric breakdowns for a handful of grad students to pat themselves on the back to.  Frankly, that seems rather masturbatory and I find it boring.  Hip-hop has always been about the people first, and people (including me -- yes, I am a person) also want to be entertained.  There's a fine line between cold intellectual analysis and ice-cold swag posturing, and I believe that line is where the real humanity comes across.  Krzysztof Kieslowski once wrote, regarding the making of "The Decalogue", that "...politics had ceased to interest us.  On a day-to-day basis they were tedious and trivial, and, from the historical perspective, hopeless.  We didn't believe that politics could change the world, even less so for the better."

What this breaks down to is simply that individual human stories will always interest me more than politics.  To boot, I firmly believe they have more power to shape us into better people.  So what to do when hip-hop has become a game of politics with the cypher cats playing their self-assigned role as populist culture-preservers on the left and the big-grossers playing the 1% I'm-richer-so-I'm-better card on the right?  The word "punk" springs up as a potential savior.  In a world of players and player-haters, you do not pick a side.  You just love what you love, and when what you love starts to do fucked-up shit, you call it out.

For example --

"Keep a couple wet wipes case a bum try to touch me / Ew." - Nicki Minaj.

"Whoa, you did a cool thing with your voice there, but your totally soulless lack of empathy makes me want to tell you to fuck off.  So fuck off." - A possible response.

Starting tomorrow, I'm kicking off 6X26, which means I'll be releasing one brand-spankin' NEW and TOTALLY FREE music video, track, or perhaps something else for 6 days straight up until 6/26.  Why do this, you ask?

Since I can remember, 26 has been my lucky number, my totem, my touchstone.  And so, in the 26th year of my life, to commemorate my extremely specific and individual obsession with this number, I wanted to push myself to create like a madman in order to celebrate 6/26/12.