Tommy Washbush
One of rap’s greatest attributes is its accessibility.
You don’t need expensive instruments or equipment to get started. All you need to get down is a beat and some rhymes. The beat can come from any source — someone banging on a table, a DJ, a drummer or even an app on your phone. And, like song lyrics of every other genre, the rhymes can — and do— vary widely in scope, style and substance.
Couple all this creative freedom with the fact that rap is arguably the most popular music on the planet and it’s no surprise that even a small market city like ours has a vibrant, talented and growing hip-hop community. And at times, it seems everyone wants to be an emcee. Now, that doesn’t mean just because you want to rap that you should. Becoming a skilled emcee requires not only an inherent ability — but also years of practice and plenty of hunger and hustle.
While the local rap scene has grown, not all artists and fans have always felt welcome (See story, page 21). But there has been progress in that area, with a few venues — including Plan B and Mr. Roberts — starting to book local rap acts. And UW-Madison was the first major institution to offer a full tuition scholarship to hip-hop artists with its First Wave program.
To celebrate all our local scene has to offer, we put our ear to the street to come up with this sampling of rap artists who are hot right now and either got their start here or perfected their craft around town. This isn’t a comprehensive list and you’ll notice some familiar names missing (Trapo, Lucien Parker and CRASHprez) because we’ve written about them before. For those we’ve missed: Don’t worry. We’ll stay on it.
Devan Marz
Ted Park
Though born in Madison, Ted Park moved back to South Korea with his family when he was in middle school. It didn’t work out well for him. “I never got a hold of the language and I quit going to school,” he says. “I was confused over there. Culture shock, I guess.”
To fight the isolation, Park turned to rap music to reconnect to his U.S. roots. “I was listening to a lot of hip-hop and just started writing rhymes to beats,” he says. The first rap he wrote was to the boom-bap beat and piano loop of “Feather” by producer Nujabes. “It wasn’t very good at all,” Park adds with a laugh.
Park eventually convinced his mom to move back to Madison, where he enrolled at West High School. He kept rapping and, before long, was recording tracks and playing shows around town. Feeling cramped in the small Madison market, Park moved to North Carolina briefly before settling in New York City a couple years ago.
Though he’d been generating some buzz online from a couple tracks, Park had his fair share of rough times, stress and self-doubt. He was even homeless for a time. Then, almost out of nowhere, a song he recorded at Madison producer DJ Pain 1’s home studio last September exploded as a surprise hit. “Hello (Who Is This?)” landed in the top 10 on both Billboard and Spotify’s viral charts. Labels came knocking, and eventually Park signed with Capitol Music France/Universal Music Group earlier this year. Since then, he’s sold out shows on the East Coast, gotten a mess of radio play and keeps dropping tracks to wide acclaim across the country.
“It’s amazing what can change in six months,” says the 24-year-old. “I’ve been doing big shows [and] soon it’ll be time to hit the road on tour for the first time. Everything keeps getting bigger and better.”
Real name: On and off stage, he’s Ted Park. “I couldn’t really come up with a cool stage name, to be honest.”
Online: TheRealTedPark (Soundcloud); TedParkBoi (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
His sound: Park hits the prime points on nearly every track he puts out: Each song has a catchy, radio-ready chorus (pop), some relatable lyrics about reaching for love (R&B) and a bit of bravado (rap). He uses vocal effects, but he doesn’t overuse them. Both of his newer tracks, “Me Love” and “In the Bay,” and his debut “I Know” are evidence of his wide appeal and ability.
On moving away: “I had to. It helped me grow up faster and give me extra motivation and an understanding about what I needed to do to take it to the next level — not only as an artist but as a young adult.”
Up next: Park recently snuck back into Madison to put in more work with DJ Pain 1 for a future album. He’ll also soon re-release “Hello” and some other tracks internationally through his label.
On the local Madison scene: “The enthusiasm in Madison hip-hop right now is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it there before. I’ve never seen so many people excited to go to shows and support their artists. There are a lot of artists who just aren’t getting the noise yet, but over time, it will happen. I salute every one of them.”
Scotify
Rich Robbins
For some, the path to hip-hop is a natural progression, almost a rite of passage.
“Like any young boy in a city setting, I thought I could rap,” says the 24-year-old Rich Robbins. “So naturally, me and some friends decided to form a group and out of everybody, I was the one who stuck with it.”
Rapping for almost a decade now, Robbins was a student in the First Wave program at UW-Madison, a scholarship for hip-hop and spoken word artists. After graduating in 2015, he made a name for himself in the local scene by playing shows, recording a couple EPs and teaming up with many other artists; in a notable show last year, he took on the ambitious task of remixing his Nimbus album live onstage with the help of other local emcees.
He’s also used his time here to flesh out who he is as an artist. “Music for me has always been very liberating; it’s always been super reflective for me,” says the Chicago native, who plans to move home soon. “I make it to help people be reflective but also want it to be entertaining — I want to walk that fine line where I’m a very conscious rapper but also be very entertaining at the same time.”
Real name: Christian Robinson
Online: RichRobbinsMusic (Soundcloud); RichR0bbins (Twitter)
His sound: Soulful, sharp and overflowing with emotion, it’s clear that Robbins labors over choosing just the right word for every line in every verse. That said, he’s exceptionally versatile on the mic, pivoting from complex storyteller to tongue-lashing lyricist with ease. As he says on last year’s All.This.Gold EP, “I am the voice between the street and the scholarship.”
Musical message: “There’s also a strong emphasis on brown self-love [in my music] — telling brown people that it’s okay to love yourself,” he says. “I don’t think the narrative of our country is telling brown people that it’s okay to love themselves. That’s really important to me.”
Rhyme writing technique: “I don’t really use a notebook anymore. It’s just so much more convenient to write it in a Word document, then email it to myself and read it off my phone,” he says, adding that he’s currently using a document full of random rhyme ideas that’s 400 pages long.
Up next: By summer’s end, he’ll drop a new project he describes as “a 10-song love story that chronicles being in a long-term relationship that doesn’t work out.”
Trebino
One of the rougher emcees around town these days, this 20-year-old’s songs revolve around life on the streets. But while guns, drugs and other illegal activity are the backdrop, ‘Bino presents his reality with a higher level of lyrical skill than most others in the sub-genre of trap rap. Originally from Chicago, the West High graduate balances these tales from the corner with warnings about how deep and dangerous the street life can be, a testament that he’s seen it firsthand.
Real name: Trevon Shakur McDonald
Online: Trebino608 (Soundcloud); Trebinoo (Facebook, Twitter)
His sound: First off, he’s fast. Once you get a hold of his rapid-fire flow, you find his deep voice fitting for his angry, aggressive style of calling out other rappers for faking it. Tracks like “Familiar” and “Myself” off last year’s #BinoBusiness mixtape are two of the best examples of his substance and style.
No more cussing: “On my new music, I don’t curse. If I want to get on the radio, it’s just a lot easier to not [cuss]. There’s a million substitute words I can use.”
Benefits of the local scene: “It’s small, so once you get a little buzz, it’s not hard to get people in Madison to hear you. Once you get into the scene, it’s not hard to prosper. In a bigger city, it would be harder. It’s like a family — we’re all trying to reach the same goal.”
Broadway Muse
This Chicago native was a poet long before she was an emcee.
“I’ve been writing poems since I was 11 but I didn’t write my first [rap] verse until my freshman year in college,” she says. “There was no beat. It was just how I was feeling that day and I was just playing with the words, how they sounded and the flow. I knew it was something but I knew it wasn’t a poem.”
She credits the First Wave community for her inspiration that day in 2012 — and for the years that followed. “I was really engaged in [First Wave] with all of my peers and was motivated by them,” says the 23-year-old. She moved back to Chicago after graduating last December but still regularly returns to Madison to perform.
Real name: Taniesha Broadway
Online: BroadwayMuse (Soundcloud); @broadway_muse (Instagram)
Her sound: Driven by boom-bap or trap beats, Broadway exudes an effortless confidence as she bounces through tracks. With a unique, mid-level vocal tone that’s both poised and energized, she bends words to her will whether she’s talking about racism, would-be boyfriends or her passion for creating music. She channels her hometown influences of Twista and Do or Die on the new track “Spazz,” delivering a dizzyingly fast flow that leaves even the listener breathless. Believe her when she says “I’m not here to follow any trends.”
Future goals: “I want to learn how to create my own beats. I think that [not knowing how to do that] is really slowing down my process and growth. I never had the opportunity to really share the stage with women. I want to see more women [in the Madison scene].”
Up next: More videos and a larger project. She’ll soon drop a new track called “Black and Woman,” which she says delves into “the intersection of oppression.”
Red the Bully
At 20 years old, Red has been rhyming for more than half his life.
“The first time I ever rapped in front of people was when I was 9,” he says. “I heard my uncle and some friends freestyling downstairs and I went down there and he pulled me over into the cypher and he was like ‘Go ahead, spit something; I’ve seen you with that notebook.’ So, I said a little rhyme and that was the starting point.”
Since then, Red, who went to high school in Sun Prairie, has been refining his skills and building his rep around Madison with rhymes based on bravado and the lyrical skill to back it up.
Real name: Andrew Jackson
Online: www.redthebully.com; RED 608 (Soundcloud, Facebook); Red_608 (Twitter)
His sound: With a slow, almost singing style, Red floats over the beat, laying down line after line about how he can go toe-to-toe with the best lyricists around.
Up next: He’s starting from scratch and will drop a brand-new EP sometime this fall. “I’ve been doing remixes and dabbling at putting out singles [and] what I have out now is only a start. I want all new beats, something all new.”
Ra’Shaun
Sometimes, the best publicity can come from unexpected sources.
This emcee’s first major bump came when model and actress Chloë Grace Moretz (from The Amityville Horror and 500 Days of Summer) told her Twitter followers about Ra’Shaun’s crisp, catchy track “Colombiana” and urged them to “play [it] at full volume.”
“[That] gave me the boost I needed, started a whole wave for me and people started reaching out,” says the 21-year-old, who moved here from Milwaukee in middle school. Since that tweet a couple of winters ago, Ra’Shaun’s been busy dropping new tracks every few months and flying out to Los Angeles to perform, not to mention working with a number of different local artists and producers while playing plenty of shows around Madison.
Real name: Ra’Shaun Randle
Online: SneakyShaun (Soundcloud, Facebook); SneakyShaun_ (Twitter)
His sound: “I’m soulful hip-hop — I can be singing one day and giving bars the next day,” he says. Like much of the most popular hip-hop these days, many of his tracks begin with some softly AutoTuned singing, either to or about a woman, then sliding into some uptempo raps about why the woman in question should give him a shot or why things fell apart. His debut “Kolors” is full of these smooth jams, which are highly relatable, no matter your current relationship status.
Creative process: “My formula is to find the melody first and then place the right words in it. If I try to think of everything at once, it doesn’t work out. But if I do it this way, it works every time.”
Still new to it: “I ain’t been making music for more than three years but when people hear me and hear the few songs I got out [they] think I’m all the way advanced … We used to be the guys that were like ‘What if this happened?’ and ‘What if that happened?’ but now, everything we ‘What if’d’ is really starting to happen.”
Up next: He’s planning to drop a video, then another EP before heading back out to Cali to get working on his first full-length album.
Jaeger
3rd Dimension
In the early days of hip-hop, rap crews were the norm. Now, it’s almost all solo artists and crews are few and far between.
That puzzles the members of 3rd Dimension because of how much they gain through creating collectively. “It’s the same beat we all get on, but each of us will have a different approach and we can pick which one we like best and roll with it,” explains Reeks, one of the four emcees. “With a lot of ideas, it gives us the best possibility to get something great.”
That said, this crew has a bit of an advantage in working together: Half of them have known — and been rhyming with — each other since grade school. When it comes to collaborative hip-hop, they’ve held the crown for some time. Proof: nearly every emcee we spoke to for this article told us to check these guys out.
Members: Emcees Armani “Probz” Davis, James “Spaz” Golden, Jacques “Half Breed” Wesley and Lateef “Reeks” Cameron with producer Nicholas “Burn Sampson”
Online: 3rd Dimension (Soundcloud); 3dmusix (Facebook); 3rdDimension (Twitter)
Their sound: Whether it’s one of their newer tracks like “War” or “No Need” or some of the gems from their mixtape Things Have Changed, every 3rd Dimension track encourages immediate head nods. While the production varies and each emcee has his own tone, style and substance, they don’t crowd the tracks either.
The common good: “We’re five guys who are very serious artists and are very serious about being good musicians,” says Reeks. “So [when one of us] comes in with their verse and does a really good job, then the bar is set and you don’t want to be the guy dragging the team down, so everybody’s pushing each other forward and progressing.” Adds Spaz: “We all push each other past what we think we can do.”
Up next: Take it slow and steady. “We’ll keep dropping singles [until] we get the traction that we want,” says Spaz. “We’ll release a project in bulk when we feel like it can be really appreciated and digested,” adds Reeks, noting that finicky listeners are quick to chew through artists these days. “They gotta want to listen to you and take on your whole project, that’s a commitment. So, we want to get people really rocking with us and really comfortable with us — not only are they willing to listen to us, but do they really want it.”
Where to see hip-hop in Madison
Madison has had its share of issues when it comes to hosting hip-hop shows, and artists have some legit complaints about the number of venues available for rappers. But things might be looking up. A number of local, regional and national rap shows are already booked for August and September at the High Noon Saloon, the Majestic and Memorial Union. And because hip-hop shows are sometimes added on short notice, there are certainly more to come at smaller venues, including the Wisco and the Frequency.
The Urban Community Arts Network, a local nonprofit that promotes the Madison hip-hop scene, still has five free outdoor shows in its For the Love of Hip-Hop series, including one August 5 at Elver Park from 4-7 p.m. Find the group online for other shows running through Sept. 10.
