Bucks vs. Warriors

Tonight @ The Bradley Center, 7:30 p.m.

by Shepherd Express Staff

Today in Milwaukee

Mar. 07, 2009

midnight

The Milwaukee Bucks take on the Golden State Warriors tonight at 7:30 p.m.

Comments (3)

Comment Feed

I have a question for both of you guys, coming int...

I have a question for both of you guys, coming into the conversation from the indie-rock world: How often to hip-hop acts from Milwaukee tour? Do they ever leave Milwaukee and try to play other Midwestern cities or beyond? Is there even a touring network for hip-hop like there is in the world of punk and indie rock?
Whenever i hear the question "what will it take for Milwaukee hip-hop to be noticed nationally," it always comes back for me to: do they tour? If not, why not? Maybe that's just not how it's done, and i'm ignorant of the networks hip-hop artists in other towns use in lieu of touring.
But man...Juiceboxxx has been touring nonstop since he graduated high school, and he just toured with Public Enemy. If KHB toured with PE it'd be trumpeted to the skies as huge for Milwaukee hip-hop. Juiceboxxx touring with PE was huge, but was it huge for MKE Hip-Hop? Well, he's more part of the punk scene, so i don't know. Food for thought.

Anonymous more than 15 years ago

That's a great point. The guys from KHB have parti...

That's a great point. The guys from KHB have particularly strong feelings about this; they think local rappers need to tour a whole lot more than they do. They're probably right. They tour, as does Juiceboxxx, and some of the alt-rappers do regional shows and some of the club rappers do shows in the south, but by and large, the whole rap scene needs to hit the road a lot more if it wants attention outside of the city. That's a huge part of the reason for the Minnapolis scene's initial (and continued) national success; all those acts tour like crazy.

Anonymous more than 15 years ago

DJ, I completely agree about touring for those who...

DJ, I completely agree about touring for those who have national aspirations. Growing your fanbase outside of your immediate area to that. I know artists of the generation before this new generation really did try to hit the road...e.g. The Rusty P's and Black Elephant, to name a few. The internet has changed how people approach getting expose, especially in rap...across the board. Due to people have such success on the web, that has become the new "touring" in Hip-Hop. Guys like KHB love to do shows...our neighbor to the North Derril Pounds tours whenever he can...and is actually touring right now. I know Frankie Flowers has done shows out of MKE, as well as Proph, and a few others. FCC has also hit the road as much as they can behind their record. They did that West Coast swing, etc. House of M went down to Indy and had a great experience.
The fact of the matter is that the network is there, it just has to be tapped into. Hit the web and find people who are like minded and do some show trades...don't worry about money, crash on people's couches...who knows, in 2 or 3 years, it could pay off.
However, that takes a lot of dedication and sacrifice and people who rap for that immediate recognition won't take those steps because they're focusing on the here and now, not necessarily the next step. There are also a lot of people in the scene that have kids or jobs that they aren't able to leave for weeks or more at a time...and even out of town weekend gigs can be tough to swing, so it's all based on circumstance.
This is all speculation of course, applying some things I've discussed with people and applying generational theory to the scene as well (thank the good book Millennials Rising for that).

Anonymous more than 15 years ago