Post by Dark 7 Invader on Dec 8, 2007 7:45:41 GMT -5
Big in Turkey, Contribution X Is the Ad-hoc RZA of Long Beach
Thank God death-metal bands don’t make posse records, or John Flocken might still be banging his head playing needle-y arpeggios on his Flying V Custom in a metal band. Instead, the 28-year-old Long Beach MC put down the axe, followed his love of East Coast hip-hop (Big Pun, Kool G Rap, Wu-Tang Clan), got on the mic and reinvented himself as Contribution X, the ad-hoc RZA of Long Beach. Over the course of three albums, networking with underground hip-hop faves such as Wu-Tang protégé Beretta 9 and the Dawg Pound’s RBX, and breaking huge on the Turkish hip-hop scene, he and a support group of the LBC’s finest unsung MCs are slowly but surely building a clan of their own. Despite the talent pool, it hasn’t been easy.
“When Snoop Dogg came out, he kind of overshadowed the scene, [making people think] all rap out of Long Beach is gangsta,” Con X says. “It’s hard to come out when you’re going against the grain. But we’re starting to see the light.”
In Turkey, of all d**n places—by way of Burbank, no less. The story goes that Contra was walking down Pine Avenue one day, and a kid liked his Cal State Long Beach hat. “It turns out he does music, he finds out I do music, and he hooks me up with this studio in Burbank, which, it turns out, is 36 West.” As in, the Wu-Tang Clan’s West Coast studio.
That’s where Con X met extended Wu-Tang family member Beretta 9 (Killarmy), eventually even Killah Priest, traded verses, released the results on his Cobra of the North album. Then he gets a call from a Turkish hip-hop producer. “He was like, ‘I’m making this record, and I want you on it,’ so I’m like, ‘Where’s your studio?’ And he’s like, ‘Istanbul.’”
Turns out the producer and his partner are the Diddy and Damon Dash of Turkish hip-hop. Philly’s Jedi Mind Tricks were on tour in Europe; they put Con X on a few shows. “And I’m playing in front of 3,000 people,” he says, “and they all know my songs because they’ve been on the radio.”
The trip changed his life even more than his career: The Catholic-raised Flocken converted to Islam. “You hear on the news how it’s all in turmoil. I was over there two weeks, and I never heard so much as two people raise their voices to argue. The hospitality was just unreal—I don’t think I paid for a meal the whole time I was there. Muslims help other Muslims.”
And Con X helps his fellow Long Beach MCs. “We’re selling enough to make our money back,” Con X says of his modest but steady success. Looking at the credits on Cobra, which includes a DVD of the Istanbul trip, he could make his money back if all the MCs and producers dropping verses and contributing beats bought their own copies. As Devious, a member of Con X’s spin-off group 8th Platoon says, “Contra has it set up, like, where we can be at a show and meet people and have people come back to his house and record because his whole studio’s right there in his garage.”
And Cobra of the North sounds like it. Cameos from Project Blowed’s DJ Gloss, Killah Priest and RBX are balanced by home-turf rhyming from Holocaust, Bombshot, Slex, Snaire—the list goes on . . . maybe too long. But Con X sounds inspired, prophetic even: “My venomous cobra ancient like stars and supernovas/With astral projections like prophets like Jesus, Judas and Noah/Beyond the polar, I scold you like children out of their order, Barry the Baptist slaughter, submerge your head underwater,” he raps on the title cut.
“My first album was who I was; my second one was how things got crazy, meeting and recording with people I’d listened to since I was a kid,” Con X says. “[Cobra] is, like, royalty—no limitations. I played guitar; I got gangster-rap features, underground-rap features. It’s got that East Coast melodic-ness to keep your head moving, but it’s got that West Coast drum crack.”
It also has more in common with such willfully obscure East Coast crews as Brooklyn’s Non Phixion and their Uncle Howie label, than, say, Peanut Butter Wolf and his Stones Throw imprint. A little grimier, positive, but tough. The plan is to one day score a major distribution deal, but for right now, Con X and crew would rather network among the hip-hop cognoscenti and hardcore fans, than, say, make crunk hits for the club.
“If you truly love music, it’ll be successful,” Con X maintains. “Doesn’t mean you’re gonna be rich, but you’ll be successful. Like Wu-Tang Clan. They didn’t go commercial—commercial came to them.”
Contribution X performs at the cave, 49 S. Pine Ave., Long Beach, (562) 590-5000. Dec. 28, 10 p.m.
Thank God death-metal bands don’t make posse records, or John Flocken might still be banging his head playing needle-y arpeggios on his Flying V Custom in a metal band. Instead, the 28-year-old Long Beach MC put down the axe, followed his love of East Coast hip-hop (Big Pun, Kool G Rap, Wu-Tang Clan), got on the mic and reinvented himself as Contribution X, the ad-hoc RZA of Long Beach. Over the course of three albums, networking with underground hip-hop faves such as Wu-Tang protégé Beretta 9 and the Dawg Pound’s RBX, and breaking huge on the Turkish hip-hop scene, he and a support group of the LBC’s finest unsung MCs are slowly but surely building a clan of their own. Despite the talent pool, it hasn’t been easy.
“When Snoop Dogg came out, he kind of overshadowed the scene, [making people think] all rap out of Long Beach is gangsta,” Con X says. “It’s hard to come out when you’re going against the grain. But we’re starting to see the light.”
In Turkey, of all d**n places—by way of Burbank, no less. The story goes that Contra was walking down Pine Avenue one day, and a kid liked his Cal State Long Beach hat. “It turns out he does music, he finds out I do music, and he hooks me up with this studio in Burbank, which, it turns out, is 36 West.” As in, the Wu-Tang Clan’s West Coast studio.
That’s where Con X met extended Wu-Tang family member Beretta 9 (Killarmy), eventually even Killah Priest, traded verses, released the results on his Cobra of the North album. Then he gets a call from a Turkish hip-hop producer. “He was like, ‘I’m making this record, and I want you on it,’ so I’m like, ‘Where’s your studio?’ And he’s like, ‘Istanbul.’”
Turns out the producer and his partner are the Diddy and Damon Dash of Turkish hip-hop. Philly’s Jedi Mind Tricks were on tour in Europe; they put Con X on a few shows. “And I’m playing in front of 3,000 people,” he says, “and they all know my songs because they’ve been on the radio.”
The trip changed his life even more than his career: The Catholic-raised Flocken converted to Islam. “You hear on the news how it’s all in turmoil. I was over there two weeks, and I never heard so much as two people raise their voices to argue. The hospitality was just unreal—I don’t think I paid for a meal the whole time I was there. Muslims help other Muslims.”
And Con X helps his fellow Long Beach MCs. “We’re selling enough to make our money back,” Con X says of his modest but steady success. Looking at the credits on Cobra, which includes a DVD of the Istanbul trip, he could make his money back if all the MCs and producers dropping verses and contributing beats bought their own copies. As Devious, a member of Con X’s spin-off group 8th Platoon says, “Contra has it set up, like, where we can be at a show and meet people and have people come back to his house and record because his whole studio’s right there in his garage.”
And Cobra of the North sounds like it. Cameos from Project Blowed’s DJ Gloss, Killah Priest and RBX are balanced by home-turf rhyming from Holocaust, Bombshot, Slex, Snaire—the list goes on . . . maybe too long. But Con X sounds inspired, prophetic even: “My venomous cobra ancient like stars and supernovas/With astral projections like prophets like Jesus, Judas and Noah/Beyond the polar, I scold you like children out of their order, Barry the Baptist slaughter, submerge your head underwater,” he raps on the title cut.
“My first album was who I was; my second one was how things got crazy, meeting and recording with people I’d listened to since I was a kid,” Con X says. “[Cobra] is, like, royalty—no limitations. I played guitar; I got gangster-rap features, underground-rap features. It’s got that East Coast melodic-ness to keep your head moving, but it’s got that West Coast drum crack.”
It also has more in common with such willfully obscure East Coast crews as Brooklyn’s Non Phixion and their Uncle Howie label, than, say, Peanut Butter Wolf and his Stones Throw imprint. A little grimier, positive, but tough. The plan is to one day score a major distribution deal, but for right now, Con X and crew would rather network among the hip-hop cognoscenti and hardcore fans, than, say, make crunk hits for the club.
“If you truly love music, it’ll be successful,” Con X maintains. “Doesn’t mean you’re gonna be rich, but you’ll be successful. Like Wu-Tang Clan. They didn’t go commercial—commercial came to them.”
Contribution X performs at the cave, 49 S. Pine Ave., Long Beach, (562) 590-5000. Dec. 28, 10 p.m.