I am proud to say that I called the winners…well, sort of. My favorites reigned victorious! But I’ll be honest. I was a bit concerned for them initially, which is strange to say with regard to the likes of THE ARE (K-Otix/The Legendary K.O.) and Symbolic 1, a.k.a. S1 (Strange Fruit Project) – veritable giants of Texas underground hip-hop. How would these heroes of the underground fair before a crowd of 850 in the Swishahouse capital of the world? To put it bluntly, they whooped ass and took names! First place winner, Houston’s own THE ARE, will be joined by S1 of Dallas in the finals. Among the finalists thus far is DJ Babu of Dilated Peoples. Oh, ye (err, me) of little faith…
Other reasons to cheer about? Big Tune featured appearances by none other than Devin the Dude and Salih & Tomar Williams of Carnival Beats. Carnival Beats, who? -- Think “Purple Stuff” (Big Mo), “Sittin’ Sideways” (Paul Wall), “Tippin’” (Mike Jones) and many more smash Down South hits. Yeah, those guys. -- Valerie Alberto
Click the links above for YouTube action from the show. Click below for a snippet from THE ARE's final track.
I would hav liked to see that battle, esp Dj Babu, one of the sickest dj/producers on the underground. Salih & Tomar happen to be one of the illest producers although i wish they would produce for more artist outside H-town. If you like the spirit of the battle, then make sure you check out the Yaris dj battle, this week its going down in Chi-town, Alhambra Palace where the finalist are gonna battle it out infront of guest judges Clark Kent, Eddie Cruz, with Truck North & Dice Raw from the Roots crew performing. It even gets better....its free if rsvp at http://www.yarisversusyaris.com/. Just thought i'd let yall know since i work with Toyota.
Posted at: June 27, 2007 12:57 PM