Dub dot dash

Back to basics
So I'm at home last night, playing some records, having fun on the decks, when I hear some shouting outside our apartment. Look out the windows, no, can't see anything going down. Ten minutes later, more shouting, but this time its rhythmic, with a beat behind it. Okay, that's some hiphop MC's on the microphone, but where? Is it kids busking? Grab the jacket and cap, head out onto the streets and follow the noise. Half a block up the road I'm standing outside a 4 storey building - the music and rapping is drifting down from the top floor. I ask a guy standing outside the building entrance what's going on up there. He tells me its some rappers, and its for a launch of a magazine, called Back 2 Basics. Then he says the magic words - "it's free". Right. I'm there. Jump in the lift, hit the top floor, run into my man Word Perfect, and there I am in the midst of a weeknight hiphop MC freestyle throwdown. Choice! Run into a few other cats I know (hello Renee, Phil, Marcia,)and score a copy of this fine magazine. Go home and curl up on the couch with my evening's reading.

Back 2 Basics started out a few years back as a small fanzine covering local hiphop, and in its new incarnation it has blossomed into an A4 perfect-bound magazine with high production values, great photography and a free cover cd that kicks (its in stores from Monday June 7). It's great to see local hiphop maturing to the point where it understands the importance of writing and documenting its own history - see the latest issue of graffiti mag Disrupt, or the new book just out by Gareth Shute, Hiphop Music in Aotearoa, thru Reeds. Beautifully designed by Steve Russell, who did my album cover.