For nearly a decade, Milwaukee’s Miltown Beat Down has been bringing producers from the local hip-hop scene together—then pitting them against each other in beat battles judged before a live crowd. When the battles started in 2005, Milwaukee hip-hop scene was a good deal more segregated than it is now, separated by both neighborhood and race. The Beat Down helped bridge some of those divides, and in recent years it’s been bridging a very different kind of cultural divide, the one between the city’s rap scene and electronic scene, opening its stage to flocks of young EDM and dubstep producers looking to make a name for themselves.
Eight producers from both the local rap and electronic scenes will face off against each other in the Beat Down’s 2014 finals on Saturday, Nov. 8 at the Miramar Theatre, including returning champ Lex Luther. In the past these finals have featured guest performers and judges including ?uestlove, DJ Shadow and Maseo from De La Soul. For this year’s event, the organizers looked a little closer to home, inviting two one-time Milwaukee residents who have since set up camp in Los Angeles: Salva and DJ Kid Cut Up. Salva is the bigger name nationally. Since turning heads with a monster remix of Kanye West’s “Mercy” in 2012, Salva has gone on to work with artists like Diplo, Schoolboy Q and Shlomo. He’s also the owner of the esteemed Frite Nite label, which has put out releases from Ana Sia and Eprom. Kid Cut Up, meanwhile, is more familiar to Milwaukee clubgoers. For years he was one of the anchors of the city’s No Request crew, spinning both classic and contemporary hip-hop at clubs across the city.
The finals kick off at 9 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8. Tickets are $10-$20, depending on when you buy them.
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