Like I said in my Independence Day post, I met an original member of the rap group Death Threat – responsible for the cult favorite “Gusto kong bumaet,” and, all together now, “Pero ‘di ko magawa!” We got to talking with me mostly asking questions about the local hip-hop scene. First and foremost, Death Threat is set to release a new album this year. My friend, by the way, is no longer with the group.
Realizations on new artists and the scene
So I was draining whatever knowledge of hip-hop I had just to muster up a good conversation. I dropped some names, mostly of new rap artists I hear from friends and various sources. I kept remembering Gagong Rapper. Apparently, Gagong Rapper is the equivalent of a 6 Cycle Mind in the band scene. If you don’t get what I mean, I envy you. Salbakuta, probably comparable to Cueshe.
In the world of rap, Francis M is still God. There’s no denying how much respect each and every artist after him has. Andrew E is a different story. Remember that both of them are producers and most of Death Threat dude’s point of view were in those terms (producing).
Masta Plann, Sun Valley Crew, Seven Shots of Wisdom, all of those are respectable. Then I remembered someone after hearing Seven Shots – Artstrong. He claims that Artstrong is the epitome of hip-hop here in the Philippines, that he has the four elements of hip-hop. Of course I didn’t what those were, I just found out now – MCing, DJing, Grafitti Art, Breaking. Beat-boxing is considered the fifth. Then another great talent he mentioned – Pikasso.
Then there was that incident during Black Eyed Peas’ concert. He claims that they got into a small tussle with the group because when they were looking for a front act for their concert, they wanted the act to rap in English. Of course, being a fellow Filipino, they thought Apl de Ap would understand how they insisted the rappers perform in Filipino. Something like that, I don’t really know what happened.
Just to add though, I am not really aware of the local hip-hop scene but I listen to hip-hop just like anything else. In fact, if not rock, the direction of my taste in music would go that way. I feel though that today, the local scene is as underground as it could get. In my lyrics site, all I see are Mike Kosa stuff, then to top it off, the commenters act all “gangsta” and shit and bash away like they’re from opposite ends of the coast.