By Aaris A. Schroeder
Editor-In-Chief
August 3, 2007
Ever since hip-hop began, an emcee's lyrics and beats paird with money and power has been his or her mainstay in what keeps their artistry respected by other emcees and the hip-hop community as well as the fans.
When beef arises; as in emcee arguments and disagreements, emcees go about speaking and resolving their problems with one another in many different ways, just as anyone else would outside this community. One way is to lyrically punch each other until the problem is resolved or one backs down in the form of a single or ‘cut’ on their latest album – what worse way to disrespect someone than on a track.
Sacramento’s conscious hip-hop scene offers a great diversity of artists from studio junkies to live bands, garage and homemade outlets and spoken word enthusiasts. Sacramento’s hip-hop community prides itself on positivity, diversity and street smarts. The last thing Sacramento needs are emcee beefs, most of which are taken care of in-house since our hip-hop community desperately is in need of public support. Track beefing doesn’t help the state of hip-hop at this time.
Mr. P Chill, who was nominated for a [Funk and R&B] S.A.M.M.I.E., a longtime Sacramentian and emcee who rocks the stage all over Northern CA and has booked many unsigned and unknown hip-hop acts including Herchu, also nominated for a [Hip-Hop] S.A.M.M.I.E. award summer ’07.
Recently, some beef went down between P. Chill and Emaculit1 of Herchu. The story went something like, P. Chill invited Herchu to do a nine-day west-coast tour with him and The Trunk of Funk and communication issues between P. Chill and the venues didn’t go so well as Herchu’s sets were dropped in minutes and drink tickets weren’t properly distributed equally among band members.
It is common that timing, equipment issues, drink ticket offerings and payouts are normal circumstances that occur regularly when on tours and performing with different acts. Emac was nonetheless thrilled.
“I have never tried to fight him. It’s not that serious. It’s obvious we are going to cross paths but don’t do it intentionally,” says Emac about P. Chill showing up at the S.A.M.M.I.E. Showcase for hip-hop artists.
P. Chill flipped the bird to Emac and walked out when one of the lines in Herchu’s song was changed to, “Fuck P. Chill.” P. Chill thought of a way to get Emac back and settled on writing a song about how Emac treated him the last two-three years. He unleashed it on MySpace and texted several people that Emac knew; except for Emac, to listen to the new track. This was released shortly after the S.A.M.M.I.E.S., as in hours.
“I definitely don’t hate him. I feel very sad for him,” says P. Chill about Emac.
Within days, Emac was sending MySpace messages to several of P. Chill’s top friends, including UBO Magazine, concerning a rap song they should listen to, entitled, “Fuck Peach Hill,” apparently some nickname of sorts between emcees and friends.
The song had several hooks downing P. Chill on a real personal level, offering up their beef on a silver platter for all their friends and fans to partake in.
“It must be very hard, painful [for him] to carry all that hate,” says P. Chill who seemed shaken up over the situation.
“He's a good person. I can’t really knock him as an individual,” says Emac, in a sense trying to smooth the beef, er pound it out.
If the local hip-hop community can’t have unity amongst hip-hop brethren how does hip-hop survive in Sacramento? This is one thorn that needs to be plucked and healed. Right now, Sacramento doesn’t allow musicians, DJs, producers, songwriters and poets much room to thrive artistically by means of performing their acts causing many of them to leave Sacramento whether over emcee beef or venue beef.
Cut the fat, trim the beef and get over it; we have shows to book.
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